


Slippery People

by slire



Category: Batman (Movies - Nolan), Dark Knight (2008), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alliances, Gen, Not Romance, Understanding, genre: action/adventure, in which loki and crane are not woobies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-23
Updated: 2014-03-28
Packaged: 2018-01-18 07:22:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 38,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1419498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slire/pseuds/slire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A partnership between the Master of Fear and the God of Mischief becomes beneficial for both as Loki plots revenge against the Avengers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Smoke and Mirrors

**Author's Note:**

> oldfic; imported from ff . net

Three.

Two.

_One_.

The clock read 21:00. Smoke rose from the prison cell's surveillance cameras. The fake footage that transmitted to SHIELD's headquarters jarred a bit. The agents dismissed it as a weather disturbance, not worried about the Asgardian criminal still asleep.

Back in the cell, green eyes opened. Loki stood up, _very_ awake.

He'd planned this down to the very last detail. All 64 surveillance cameras had now stopped rotating. He had hacked in and planted fake videos yesterday, triggering an overheat reaction. Obtaining the means and technologic knowledge to do so had been quite difficult, but not impossible.

(The Friday guard had obeyed and the smoke detector was mysteriously absent. Men tended to give in when their firstborn's life was threatened.)

According to Loki's calculations there were eight guards outside. Today was a Sunday, the Day of Rest, meaning it was difficult finding good guards.

Inspection was at nine o'clock. Johnson, the new guard, was always late. It gave Loki enough time get a silver suitcase out from under the bed. It'd blend in nicely with the gray floor. The guard wouldn't see it. Too dim.

Loki saw Johnson's shadow beneath the metal door, typing in the codes Loki had long since memorized. The door opened. Johnson was short, blonde, and wore the standard dark blue uniform and helmet, and—from what Loki had heard during late-night backtalk—gambled and bedded barmaids on the weekends.

The door slammed shut after him.

"Standard procedure. Hands up, face against the wall. Try anything and you're dead." Loki did as commanded, expressionless as the guard searched him. "Not that you could do anything, without powers and all."

Loki sneered. His punishment in Asgard had been swift: sent back to Midgard with his magic sealed inside him. The All Father still viewed earthlings as weak, thus thinking making Loki one would cause instant redemption. But there was no turning back from the path Loki had chosen. The world leaders hadn't been keen on having Loki back whole—they'd preferred his head—however Odin offered good militaristic trades and a deal was struck.

"...You're about as dangerous as a newborn kitty. Doesn't make you less of a freak though." Johnson's hold on Loki's shoulder tightened. "You killed my pal's daughter. You deserve being treated like dirt." Where did they find these fools? Hiding under rocks? "...I should make you feel fear, like she felt..."

"Oh I promise you, I'm terrified," Loki drawled. Did Odin really believe making him mingle in this human zoo would teach him a lesson? "I'm positive I _reek_ of fear."

"Shut up! Only thing you reek of is-" Before the brute could finish the insult, he frowned. "What's that smell?"

Loki cracked his head to both sides, loosening up some muscles. He then pointed to the ceiling.

"Oh _god_ —!"

(Loki was nothing of the sort. Not anymore.)

He slammed the steel suitcase's sharp tip into Johnson's jaw, nose and forehead. The white walls were morbidly prettier with scarlet streaks. And Johnson dropped to the floor. Loki reached for the half-conscious man. "Pardon me, but I will have to borrow your clothes."

Outside, the patrolling guards grew wary. Three minutes were the maximum when it came to an inspection. Johnson had been in there for ten. "Johnson?" one of the men shouted.

The response was several gunshots. The cell was rendered to darkness.

"What's going on in there?!"

"Let's move in someone might be hurt!"

Outnumbered warriors could win wars if one of theirs was endangered. These men weren't dissimilar, forgetting to alert the prison authorities when Johnson was inside a cell with a sociopath from another realm.

The door flew open. In came six guards dressed in black. Glass shards from shattered lights cracked under their boots. It was accompanied by shouts like "He's still here!", "I can't see anything!" and "Stop playing in the shadows like a child!"

The last part made Loki smile grimly. "Gentlemen." He stepped in front of the exit, silhouetted like a shadow. Red dots on his helmet appeared. Guns were ready to pepper him full of bullets. In one hand, he had a shining suitcase. In the other was the gun shoved into Johnson's mouth, Loki's finger resting on the trigger. "Shh…" Johnson's pupils rolled back into his head, face bloodied and bruised. "Let's not be _too_ hasty."

Above, the smoke thickened.

"Let him go!" an elderly one said.

"What, so your pack of wolves can mutilate me as soon as Johnson here hits the floor?" They couldn't see Loki's face, but he could see theirs, twisting with rage. "Keep the chains tight, or someone might _die._ "

Hard steel dug into Loki's back. "Like you, unless you let him go," another guard said from behind him, clicking a safety off. Loki wearing Johnson's uniform and helmet enraged him. Guard number eight. Loki inwardly cursed in Norse for not noticing. "Thought you'd escape, eh, freak? Eh? Eh?! Ya can't do anythin' without your bloody magic!"

Did this mortal believe Loki's magic was the solemn reason he'd almost caused Earth's downfall? Loki's hand quivered and he stretched his fingers. Magic had been a part of him since birth. It was something beneath his flesh, inside his _bones_. It couldn't be removed completely, only weakened, contained, trapped, bound; a roaring beast sealed inside of him. Even the weakest spells now hurt immensely. Attempting a summoning had left him unconscious for days.

But he still had his mind.

The man behind him was loud, young, short—the angle of the gun told him that—and spoke with an accent. It left only one option of who it could be. "How's Elizabeth, Charlie?"

" _What_?!"

"I speak of your wife. Your female life-partner. Your 'Lizzie. Flaxen hair in a bun, hazel eyes, often dressed in exercise clothes… Remember?" This was child's play.

"Don't listen to him, he's just playing mind tricks!" a guard shouted from inside the cell. Tricks? Could petty _tricks_ reduce a man to a whimpering mess? Driving someone mad wasn't a trick. It was a talent.

Charlie shifted his weight from one foot to another, attention on Loki. "…H—How d'ya know about 'Lizzie?"

Loki turned his head slightly. "It is rather simple. Your kin assume people sleep when their eyes are closed. I heard Renaldo Broker here talk about his nightly visit to Elizabeth. Would you like me to share the details?"

Dead silence followed. One could hear a pin drop. Renaldo Broker was among the ones trapped in the cell, as stunned as the rest. Torn between emotions and common sense, trifling little minds in chaos. _'Did she cheat? No, it's trick! But I did smell cologne on her…'_

Johnson's blood-smudged clock read 21:11.

It is in crucial moments most commit mistakes.

Too used to the tingle of magic between his fingers, Loki muttered a spell. Charlie and Johnson were shoved into the cell by an invisible force. But that wasn't all—Loki's arm exploded. Or, more specifically, veins in his arm did. His use of magic triggered the violent Norse anti-magic rituals cast upon him in Asgard.

Loki closed the door just in time to hear someone spew out a tragic monologue about needing to live to support his pregnant wife. _Imbecile_. Loki's arm gushed blood, darkening the guard cloth. It was thankfully not too visible. At least it was better than the orange jumpsuit prisoners here had to wear.

An alarm went off. The hall's walls blinked in red. SHIELD had no doubt seen it all. Loki headed for the lift, ignoring the impulse to smile at the cameras.

Whistling on a Midgardian tune—the American national anthem, if he recalled correctly—he pushed the one button in the lift and the doors closed. He ripped the surveillance camera down from its place. He then opened the suitcase and flipped out an upgraded version of a telephone device, a 'black berry', smiling.

Odd what an upgraded telephone could do. One could even read a person's life from the pictures and messages.

Their biggest error was moving him to the nonviolent crowd, forgetting he'd gauged a man's eye out. It'd allowed him to strategize without interruption. The prison was well-guarded, but if one studied it closely one could spot holes in the highest of security. The right to read was still his according to Midgardian prison customs. In a week he was as knowledgeable as an engineer in computer science.

Through the lift's window he saw guard after guard. Loki tipped his helmet a bit more down. It felt surreal.

Orders rang from the loudspeakers.

"We have a situation on the fourth floor division six, all untrained units must leave the building, I repeat, all untrained units must leave the building."

On the second floor, it stopped. As the doors, a SWAT team stood waiting, members wrestling themselves forth in the chaos of people. Loki blended in with the crowd as fast as he could, keeping his head low. His helmet kept him hidden.

"Is this a training exercise?" someone asked.

"Does it look like that, dipshit?" someone else replied.

Special unit members looked through the crowd, picking random workers and asking them about ID. One of them squinted at Loki. The latter's blood turned to ice.

Someone laid a hand on his shoulder. His surroundings froze. Holding his breath, he turned around. An old man stood there. "Oi, rookie, here's the way out. That door leads up. You'll get yelled at for sure." Some of the special units waved to him, and he waved back. "I know these guys—no reason to get nervous. They're just like us but with shinier badges."

"I-I'm sorry," Loki stammered, faking an accent. "Never taken part in… _this_ before."

The old man jokingly patted Loki's helmet. "Just stick close to me, son." It was only the audience arranging a road for them that kept Loki from arranging the removal of the old man's vital organs. They moved along with the ocean of people. None of the guards spared Loki a second glance after seeing such a loyal old guard with him.

It didn't take long until the crowd guided Loki out into the parking lot outside.

It was night in Midgard. The dark clouds above didn't lessen his mood. Even the rain was welcomed.

Under an umbrella stood a freckled girl with red hair and squared glasses, waiting for him. Deaf and dull and _useful_. She could not speak properly and guided him to her gray vehicle.

He sat into the backseat and sunk into the seats. He removed his helmet. They used the chaos to escape unnoticed. As they hit the main road, numerous police cars pulled in. The night was illuminated in blue and red, twinkling in puddles and car windows, sirens howling.

That was when Loki first allowed himself to breathe properly. He cast a look at the redhead driving. It was in the prison's cafeteria he'd found her; his first pawn. Two tables from his solitary corner had some mobsters from another city been seated. "What I'd for to a woman," one of them had begun. "Y'know, one with big tits and a round-"

"Save it, ain't no gals in here. Go drop the soap if you're that desperate."

"There's one!" Behind bars in a kitchen section, a female cook was cutting up carrots. The fool had started addressing her ("Wanna taste some real man, pretty girl?") until a guard told him he'd just gotten latrine duty for six weeks.

Then the other mobster had revealed something interesting. "Idiot. They hired her 'cos she can't hear shit, so we can't scare her off." Deaf? An idea had blossomed in Loki's head.

The trap had started off simple: a note hidden under his cup of water, detailing the guards' dismissal over his chloride sensitivity. The next day, she'd written 'no salt' on his food. Loki had eaten it smiling despite how shitty it was. He'd needed to widen her façade's cracks. A few days later, he'd quietly questioned a guard about his mother's sexual decency. She'd watched as he was hit. He'd made sure. It inspired even more sympathy.

She'd offered him bandages. Knowing she'd come, he'd slapped the equipment out of her hand, faked extreme distress, hyperventilating until she left. He knew how one looked before a beating (even the 'halcyon' Asgard had drunks and fiends) and had copied it. As well as having a silver tongue, Loki also had good acting skills. He'd already drafted an abused childhood story. When finished, he left it on a note along with a yellow origami bird at his plate. Mortals liked theatrics.

_I apologize, I did not intend to act ill-mannered… I am not used to kindness... That is all._ Rest of it was some sob story about his alcoholic father. People with low self esteem were often easily manipulated, trusting the first nice person that came along. _…This gift is not much. Regardless, I hope I am forgiven._ He'd seen her straighten out the note's wrinkles. Careful, like holding a real bird, she'd held the origami figure. For the first time, she'd smiled to him.

And Loki had smiled back because the trap had sprung around her.

Rest of it had gone fluently. His fake sympathy had made her share secrets about herself, her antisocial behaviour and her sister's drug abuse. Exchanging notes instead of direct confrontation made her open up more, like the paper worked as a barrier, a mask.

Soon he'd deliberately pushed her in the direction of helping him escape. She now firmly believed that whatever crimes he'd committed was all thanks to his tragic past. Of course whatever crime he'd committed wasn't his fault, but his abusing, neglecting father! Loki snorted and returned to the present.

This pause couldn't last. The train station laid close by.

New York was a constant headache, with loud people and buzzing streets. It was also a constant reminder of his failure. About the destruction and death he felt nothing. It didn't matter. Humans bred like rats without anything to control them. Seven billion by now, wasn't it?

With rain pouring against the windows, he could only see blurred lights.

He tore off some strips from his guard cloth and bandaged his arm, the magic wound still fresh and bleeding. A winter coat was thrown beside him. In the car window, he saw that the female had worry in her eyes. Had it been pity, someone might've found her corpse mashed into the train tracks the next morning.

Loki just thanked her. He could be quite charming so desired. But had her usefulness expired? Well, if things turned unpleasant, having a human shield could prove to be the opposite.

The coat was long enough to cover the blood on his trousers. By turning his coat collar up, he hid half his face.

The car stopped. Loki grabbed his suitcase and exited the car. The girl followed.

"Thank you…" He'd forgotten her name. Loki read off her suit's ID, "…Angelica. You have been most useful to me." Then, out of hatred against her race, he bent down, mouth near her ear. His next words were not pleasant. After delivering the little tirade, Loki pulled away, smiling just as charmingly.

Angelica blushed, convinced that he'd told her something nice. It clearly wasn't a setup. She handed him the train ticket with such obedience that Loki wondered if she'd take a bullet for him.

"Goodbye," she mouthed as a series of railroad cars entered the stations. Loki had read a little about train terminology during his imprisonment, recognizing where to enter a train. But as soon as he'd parted with the girl, his expression darkened. He'd heard the sirens long before she did. He could already see police battling themselves through the thick crowds.

Loki uncurled the ticket, ink a little bit smeared because of his damp pocket.

It spelt **GOTHAM** with big black letters.

.

.

Inside the aquarium, tropical fishes swam round and round and round.

It was easier to look at them rather than at the girl Loki had brainwashed.

"…reverse Stockholm syndrome," the old policeman finished, looking at her through the window. The tiny woman sat in the interrogation room, hands folded in her lap. Incredible how who looked like innocence itself could be an accomplice of a mass murderer. "Always the quiet ones, isn't it?" The policeman had seen a lot of shit in his work. Hadn't even flinched when three Avengers stormed his office.

"Sir, please let me talk to her," Captain America urged.

The policeman took a drag from his antique pipe.

Ironman, or Stark, was leaning against a wall. His mask was off. "There's not much to talk about, cap." Not all the guards Loki had locked in Loki's cell had survived. He'd seen the families crying in the police station's lobby, desperate for answers. "She's deaf." _'...and brokenly loyal,'_ Stark added in his head, glancing at Thor, who kept his eyes on the aquarium.

Captain America grabbed a note from the commissioner's desk. He scribbled something down.

The commissioner read through it while exhaling the smoke at the _'No smoking!'_ sign on his desk. He looked through window again. "Go."

Captain America nodded back and entered. Thor followed.

"Hello ma'am," the star-spangled Avenger greeted. She paled. His expression softened and he gave her the note. _'Please. We need all the information we can get. Loki isn't a common criminal; he's a sociopathic mass murderer that will kill again if he gets the chance.'_ "Please," Captain America repeated.

The little lady shifted uncomfortably upon ' _mass murderer_ ' just like Thor always did. But by Odin was she tiny. Three heads shorter than him at least.

"No." Her voice was loud and off—he realized it was because she couldn't hear herself. "You did not... You did not see his eyes."

Captain America had nothing to answer to that.

Thor got an idea. He leant forward and wrote ' _BROTHER_ ' on a yellow sticker, handing it to her. He pointed at himself. She squinted. Thor sighed and decided to leave.

"Wait!"

Thor jerked, turning his head.

Her hand was on his lower arm.

"I have a... bad sister. I l-love her."

Something unspoken passed between them.

"...Gotham," she then told him.

_Slam!_

The door to the other room flew open. The commissioner's pipe fell to the floor, breaking.

Captain America held up a hand, "No, wait, we need to strategize-!"

Thor pushed past everyone who stood in his way, gone in an instant. Stark had half-expected him to go right through the wall, leaving Thor-shaped hole.

"Y'know..." the Captain scowled at Stark. "I'm going to start blaming that on _you_."

.

.

Hours had passed.

The Midgardian device—the 'Train'—had gone past fields, cities, slums, and mountains.

It passed a ' _Welcome to Gotham'_ sign, its letters washed out and barely readable. Vulgarities in green graffiti had been written underneath.

Gotham's atmosphere was all but welcoming. Very different from New York. Darker. Heavier rain poured. Restless winds howled, forcing trees to bow. Gray, polluted clouds hang over the city. A crimson sunset shone through them. Wasn't the sunset a mirror reflecting all the blood spilled in Gotham?

Why had the girl—the _pawn_ —sent him here? Did _Loki_ reflect this twisted city?

It reminded him of his childhood and... them. Joining hands. Dancing around him. Singing. He'd pressed his hands against his ears and still heard it. _"Silver-tongue, Silver-tongue, why are you here with us?"_

If he had a place to go to, he'd go there.

For now, he'd do with this sombre city. _'Not like I have a choice,'_ he thought, exiting the train, suitcase in hand. Without magic, he did not have his natural resistance to low temperatures. Loki shivered. He needed to find a tavern of some sort. Sleep. Take one day at a time. Try breaking the seals that caged his magic.

He passed demolished buildings, litter dumps and homeless people. No one plagued him during his travels. He guessed it was because of his own eerie aura, triggering basic instincts in the barbarians. A dead drunk girl—fifteen or nineteen, hard to see thanks to all that smudged makeup—was pushed against a dumpster by a hairy pig, skirt drawn high.

Loki did not spare them a second glance. Those inside and outside prison didn't seem that dissimilar. Or had he walked into a bad district? Was Gotham a tree rotten to the core, a sewer of criminals?

A store's window caught his attention, sale posters glued to the glass. Inside televisions in all shapes and sizes showed the same image: a man with a double chin sitting behind a desk, talking. Thor had undoubtedly concluded that there was an actual human inside. _'To think I called him brother,'_ Loki thought bitterly.

Despite the downpour, clear noise came through the store window.

"...Urgent news on Gotham Tonight! Arkham asylum inmate Jonathan Crane, also nicknamed the Scarecrow, escaped by midnight, taking out five guards in the process." A costume popped up on the screen next to a picture of the inmate unmasked with eyes in an intense shade of blue. Not electric Thor-blue; icier, like late autumn frost on the grass. "...He nicknames himself the Master of Fear, and is highly unstable and dangerous to approach. We beg all the viewers to take precaution. After what we've been told, trained police are on his trail."

"Jonathan Crane is the former head of Arkham Asylum. The crime that showed his mental instability was the poisoning in downtown Gotham.

releasing chemicals that forced victims to experience horrid hallucinations, nicknamed the 'Fear Gas'. Luckily it was quickly stopped by our brace police force."

A woman and a man popped up on the screen. "Doctor, what about the claim that the vigilante known as the Batman was the saviour?" Loki recalled that name. The mobsters had talked about the Batman, the vigilante that dressed up like a giant flying rodent.

"That's a load of bull, Susie. The Batman is a psychopathic murderer who beats up the insane for some twisted sense of justice. As written in my book, he is the real reason that these demented people show up in the first place..."

"Bullshit."

Loki turned to the side.

An old woman stood there, hands deep in her pockets. "Saw the Bat savin' a kid last week. Man might be a lil' crazy, but he's no murderer. It's some government setup, I know it..." The woman continued to mutter to herself, hurrying home.

Paranoia had sunk its teeth hard into that one.

Loki took a shortcut through an alley. An amateur robber blocked his path, knife in one hand, the other opening and closing. "Give me your wallet, lanky man." The mortals and their insufferable nicknames. Loki decided he'd do an experiment.

He reached into his pocket. Held out his hand. Smirked. "Ah. Here it is." Despite an awful hurt in his arm, a tiny green flame appeared in the palm of his hand and he swung it forward.

Into the robber's face.

"Huh- _Arghh_!" Loki pressed on. Heat blazed. Skin went crisp under his hand. Not permanent. Still fun. Loki's arm started hurting something awful, but the screaming dulled it. But it had to come to an end eventually. Loki pulled back and the man fell on his bottom. "Fucking freak!" Fear laced his voice. Loki raised an eyebrow and took a step forward. The man screeched like an endangered maiden and crawled off like a hound, tail between its legs. Fear was quite interesting.

And as if called, a thin figure bolted through the ally.

Right.

Into.

Loki.

There was a crash of two bodies colliding. Both fell backwards into puddles on the pavement.

The man groaned in pain and shakily stood up. His glasses were held together by duct tape. The police jacket he wore was too big. He looked up, brown bangs no longer covering his... _eyes_. Blue-tinted white. Just like-

"The Scarecrow."

Loki did not view ordinary mortals as weak. But this was Gotham. Here, ordinary people mostly died or moved.

The Scarecrow stood frozen. He cast a look behind him. Then to Loki. He held up a rusty spray box of some sort and greenish smoke was sprayed into Loki's face. As he breathed it in, magic he'd believed lost recoiled within him.

Tiny green sparks seared, churned and hissed like electricity across his skin, each pop a tiny explosion.

Raw magic fought the negative effects of the Fear Gas. Like a sleeping serpent, caged magic hissed upon awakening, tearing at the chains and locks containing it. Some small sparks escaped his fingertips, glittering like gold.

Tiny green lights cracked in the air, dancing against the Scarecrow. They slithered up his arm. He did not notice. Those intense ice eyes behind the mask never tore away from Loki.

"You're not from around these parts, are you?"

It was not a time for questions or answers. For it was night in Gotham. It was then a watchful knight ransacked the rotten tree, cutting of the diseases infecting it. Loki did not reflect Gotham—the Batman did, with his dark cape and demonic look.

And he headed their way.

Although the apparent Master of Fear, he had no qualms running from the Batman. It told that the figure heading their way was more than a man in a costume.

The Scarecrow gave Loki one last curious glance

Then he vanished in shadows.

Still in possession of some of Loki's magic.


	2. Shards of an Understanding

Jonathan Crane.

What a great mind he'd had, the rumours said, left in ruins because his own creation. Or had he been mad all along? A month or two at Arkham Asylum could leave anyone doubting their sanity, be patient or staff. He'd needed to flee before he started calling it home.

He'd been the former head of Arkham, and knew which guards weren't beneath being bribed by a lunatic. Sometimes the bribes were money, and sometimes a dear one's life. Manipulating fears was child's play. Running through the Narrows with the Bat in his heels was not.

Crane fidgeted with the lock of his new hideout. "Work!" he hissed, breath becoming smoke. As on command, the key turned. He stumbled in.

The apartment was clean, owing to the bribed housekeeper's frequent visits. It consisted of four rooms and a hallway; a bathroom, a combined living room and kitchen, a bedroom, and a guest bedroom to be used as a chemical workshop. Arrangements had been made. Boxes with clothes, nourishment and dangerous chemicals were stabled everywhere. Persuasive as he was, he had many... allies.

But where were his most priced possessions? Stepping into the living room slash kitchen, he found them. Shelves upon shelves seemed to hold up the roof with an endless amount of books, paperbacks and hardcovers, fiction and non-fiction, periodicals and encyclopaedias, ranging from H. P. Lovecraft to Psychology Today magazines. Impressive how they'd moved his collection here. Lovingly, Crane drew a hand over their backs, mouthing memorized titles.

He remembered the nights in Georgia when he'd used literature as an escape. In those moments, he'd forgotten about working in the field, the bullies, and his great grandmother (and her pets). They'd denied him any good books in the madhouse. Sitting at the other side of the desk was horrible, listening to the same lies of rehabilitation and trust. His mind held far too much of importance to have it dissected by idiots!

At the moment, he just needed to get out of the soaked jacket.

Crane rummaged through the boxes. Took a shower. Put on dry clothes. Made an omelette to stifle his hunger. In comparison to the food at Arkham, it was a delicacy. Most of Crane's food wouldn't last more than a few weeks, and it'd take time constructing a brand of Fear Gas that Batman had no antidote for. He would have to visit the supermarket as some point.

He was heading for his toxin workshop when the door slammed open.

"Scarecrow."

He froze. In slow motion, Crane turned around.

"You have something rightfully belonging to me."

It wasn't the Bat, thank heavens, but the man he'd gassed an hour ago, somehow not in a fetal position experiencing inhuman horrors. His aluminium suitcase shone. The intensity of Crane's baby blues were nearly outmatched by the stranger's emerald eye colour, alight when the rest of his face was shadowed.

"I don't know what you're talking about." Gaze never leaving the dark form in the doorway, Crane reached for his gun.

"Most do not." The stranger entered, his bitter smile barely visible over the collar of the winter coat. "No matter. I will take back what is rightfully mine."

Crane clicked the safety off and aimed for the green eyed one.

The stranger elegantly strode forth and snapped his fingers. Something popping and cracking slithered up Crane's hand, loosening his hold. The gun fell. Both dived for it, reduced to a barbarian level. Crane dodged an aluminium suitcase aimed at his head. He felt his arm being grabbed, and using his size to his advantage, he twisted around and kicked the stranger in the shin. A groan. Then Crane was swung backwards into a table, glasses flying off.

A lamp shattered. Things around them had a tendency to do that.

Crane rolled off, hissing in pain, and grabbed the gun. He'd shoot to kill. Put a bullet in his head. And then in his heart, for good measure. Thirst for revenge drove him to rise—

only to find a glass shard a fingerbreadth from his eye and a hand around his neck.

"Let go of the weapon or I will _scrape_ your eye out from the socket."

The gun fell onto the floor, and was kicked away. Crane tugged vaguely at the grip, hating how near surpassed memories from the time when Batman gassed him ("A taste of your own medicine, doctor?") surfaced. Physical contact in general was repulsive. His attacker continued, "Fighting is fruitless. Will you listen, now?"

Crane nodded. Once. The muscle under one eye twitched, thrice.

"Good. I'm here to take back what you stole from me when gassing me. Stay still or it'll hurt more."

It did hurt. The stranger was drawing something out of him. Describing it was difficult; it was like the prickling feeling from a trick he learnt as a child, pulling an imaginary thread out their palm by disrupting the area's blood flow, only this was extended to his entire body, and downright painful.

Sweat glistered on the man's forehead, frown and concentration deepening. Whatever he was removing had become settled and become resistant, like a parasite. It throbbed in time with Crane's heartbeat, which he no doubt knew the man could feel in his hand. "Enough," he mumbled. It _rustled_ as it left. He had a befuddled expression, but it dropped along with Crane, who slumped against the wall.

He cast no look back before walking towards the door.

It could've ended there.

"You didn't tell me your name."

But it didn't.

Fate did not step in. Fate had butchered their pasts, eaten their rotting hearts, and spit them out again in an unforgiving world. Pride pushed them forward and ensured that none of them would go without having the last word.

He stopped. "Why," he asked, "would I care to answer that?"

"You owe me."

In a second, rage overwhelmed him. He twisted around, hissing, "I owe you _nothing_ , mortal."

"Yes you do." Crane nodded dismissively against blood dripping through the winter coat. "A new carpet, for starters."

Confusion put the anger to a halt. Then, the man snorted. "...I have little interest in what you decide to call me. Loki. Silver Tongue. Trickster. Liesmith. God of Mischief. I have many names."

Many men called themselves god in a madhouse. Crane patted around on the carpet in search of his glasses, careful to avoid any glass shards. "Loki from...?"

Loki quieted. "Asgard. I'm Loki of Asgard."

Recognition dawned on Crane's face as he put on the glasses. He stood up, interest dawning on his face. "I, too, have multiple names—we've already established theScarecrow—though none of them implies a tyrant that tried to conquer Earth." Crane had picked up a torn newspaper in the workshop once. He'd seen half of Loki's face there, along with some headline about extraterrestrials attacking the world. It hadn't bothered him. Not when in Arkham, a world of its own. "I mostly go by Dr. Crane." He took a step forward. "Why are you in Gotham, Loki, besides soiling apartments?"

"None of your business."

"I see. Do you have trust issues, Loki?"

"Careful _,_ Crane." He did a complex hand movement and Crane flew back against the wall. "Don't psychoanalyze me." Loki regained the strange look, like he was expecting something that did not happen. He seemed to realize something. "Tell me about that Fear Gas of yours."

In spite of Crane's external polite (politer than Loki, anyway) coolness, he detested being treated like an inferior. But he was also an opportunist. "Fear _Toxin_. It's a concentrated chemical mix. Effects range from hallucinating to reliving repressed memories. Purpose? To make the subject feel raw terror." His voice was a disinterested drawl, forehead wrinkled. "Seeking revenge on someone?"

"Yes, many. A City. New York."

(Targeting SHIELD and the Avengers directly would be unlike him. Too simple. The best way to destroy someone was through others, and Loki would gladly crush the citizens they'd avenged.)

"I could do that. In fact, I've already done it, poisoning the Narrows, the part of Gotham we're currently in. It worked perfectly until my employers screwing up. Let us not forget the Batman. I take it you're quite familiar with superheroes yourself?" Loki gave a curt nod. "He created an antidote for my old toxic, I'm afraid. I'll make new one, but it'll take time. After that, mass reproduction will be easy."

"I have time."

"So do I."

For a while, they contemplated each other. What had prompted such a turn of events?

An understanding, perhaps.

Fear or mischief, both induced chaos. Neither Loki nor Crane were warmongering destroyers like Thanos or the League of Shadows, they were tools of destruction, happy to watch the world burn from the sideline. Reactive instead of active, their vengeances far more intricate than of those who desired thrones. They enjoyed the chaos more than the aftermath, and the game more than the outcome.

Even amongst the two of them, a game of wits had begun.

"...But I won't do it for free," Crane finally said. "Quid pro quo."

"Ah, yes, let us bargain. Name your price, Scarecrow."

Things were happening fast; an attempt to make the other make mistakes.

"My requests are simple." Loki did not miss the plural. "Your magic has a fascinating effect on my chemicals. I want to extract some of it from you." It could be used against Batman for his own vengeance. He'd be careful. Should he extract too much, Loki would take an eye as compensation. "I'd also be interested in partaking, if not directly, in your schemes." On Crane's face, he recognised the want for control among chaos.

"That could—" Sirens interrupted him, echoing through the whole street. Both of them grew wary. Crane made a gesture towards the door, and Loki kicked it shut. He licked his dry lips, clearly uncomfortable with the idea of going out, now that police was swarming the Narrows. "Do they have any leads on your whereabouts?"

"None. Officially, this apartment is owned by a paranoid schizophrenic with documented restraining orders from four ex boyfriends. Thus Gotham's cops, incompetent and lazy, will not check here." Having his accomplice sent back to prison to rot would be a loss. Being intimate with Loki's plots concerning his creations outweighed the need of solitude. It also gave him a chance to put a dagger in Loki's back, if it came to that. "I have a guest room," Crane settled on saying. "It'd be an advantage for both of us."

The hall flashed in blue and red.

"Yes... Yes, I believe it would."

Crane nodded. "To sum it up, I design the Fear Gas exactly as you want it against some of your magic and an active part in your vengeance." Both were clever liars, and Loki had even introduced himself as silver tongued. "If it'd only been so _simple_."

"It could be. I know an incantation that'd ensure we both go through with what we promised."

"And if I don't?"

"Quite frankly, your heart will explode."

Crane grimaced. "Are all Asgardian rituals that macabre?"

"Only the ones worth knowing." Loki held out a hand. "Are you prepared to go through with it? It'd be the only way to ensure that we get what we want, unless, of course, you planning on betraying me."

"Wouldn't dream of it," Crane smoothly replied, taking the hand offered to him. "This will be the start of a fascinating partnership."

"Yes... a partnership," Loki agreed, before slipping into deep concentration. He started murmuring in a tongue lost to mankind centuries ago. "Give your vows. Be quick and precise." Crane did, repeating what he'd said. Loki followed suit. Green lines slithered from their wrists and up, following the veins until it sunk beneath the skin. Crane swore he felt a pinch inside in his heart.

The world stood still for a moment. A long moment. An eternity.

"Done."

Crane's lungs were about to burst. He breathed out, not even aware he'd been holding it. Any regret was swallowed by the opportunities this bargain held. Unsure what to do next, he decided on sacrificing sleep for the infomation Loki could provide.

That was when things

went wrong

again.

Loki's hand started convulsing. As he brought it up for inspections, squinting, it moved up his arm and conquered half his body. It made noises like frying meat. Pain twisted his expression. A volcano of pain erupted, a volcano that burnt straight through the arm of his winter coat, flesh stirring like blackening tomato sauce. Then blood gushed out. Loki's mask had fallen like a ton of bricks.

"I ne—need... to redress my wounds. Where...?"

Wordless, Crane pointed at the bathroom door. That was no ordinary wound. Was Loki's magic this unstable? Or was there something else?

The Asgardian leant on the wall as he staggered forward, leaving a red smear on the wallpaper.

The aluminium suitcase lay forgotten on the floor. Crane didn't even consider opening it. Having an accomplice die on his bathroom tiles wasn't optional. Crane went through a box of medical equipment, and found a medical kit and fresh clothes. Upon entering to the bathroom, he found Loki sitting in a chair, peeling off fabric fused with his skin. Crane leant on the doorframe, regarding him, interest burying the stench of burnt flesh and blood.

"Did my toxin do this?"

"Of course not." Without the coat—currently discarded in a pool of blood—Loki was smaller and thinner, clearly a man that invested more in mind than in muscle. Loki was also paler than Crane, blood loss doubling effect. It was a stark contrast to the treacle black hair reaching beneath his shoulders, telling Crane he'd been in prison for some time. And it was a prison he'd come from, with that torn guard outfit.

"You need to disinfect it after cutting away the fabric. Gotham is a shithole, and the Narrows are its sewers. Who knows what kind of diseases you've attracted, going around like that."

Loki looked up.

Crane involuntarily swallowed.

But he pulled himself together, remembering who was superior. "Let me have a look." Loki's fingers curled at his knees, but he did not refuse.

When Crane approached, he finally saw it up close and realized that yes, these were no ordinary wound _s_. They were thick, deep carvings; intricate whorls or letters in a strange language. It covered the entire length of his arm, coiling up around the shoulder and half his neck as if reaching up to asphyxiate him, completed with pieces of fabric that'd melted in. "Do not touch them," Loki warned without looking at him.

Crane used a medical scissor to cut half the guard jacket off, and a pair of tweezers to remove whatever remained of the material. "It's hard to help when I don't know what that is. If you use that incarnation before our every trade of information, you might die. Think of it as a friendly exchange between colleagues." Outwitting each other wasn't the main goal of their association, no matter how amusing it was. "Tell me what happened."

To admit defeat would be to admit exploitable weakness, but no partnership would work without the tiniest amount of trust. Loki blamed the blood loss as he spoke. "I allied with the Chitauri, an extraterrestrial race, in their quest to rule Earth and stole the Tesseract, wielding me power to control minds. Out of luck, the Avengers somehow managed to defeat them. I'm now facing Asgardian punishment in the form of having my powers stripped off me and banished to a prison in Midgard, your realm."

"Yet you still have magic." Limited, though. Crane wouldn't have fancied having a sorcerer with limitless power in his house.

"My magic is a part of me, connected to my very essence. To destroy it one would have to destroy me as well. But with ancient rituals, it can be bound. This," he gestured to the gashes Crane was disinfecting with a dot of cotton, "happens whenever I miscalculate and use too much magic. Your Fear Gas caused a reflexive response from it, thus caused caged pieces to break loose. Little by little, I'll regain my full power." He wrinkled his nose, "Until then, I will have to live in this _rotten world_."

He held back, Crane could tell. So he didn't comment, just started bandaging the arm.

"What about your story?"

Eyes. Windows to the soul. Looking into Loki's was like looking into a burning house, but Crane had never had Pyrophobia. "I never said I'd tell you."

The fire flickered. "Odd. Do you have trust issues, Jonathan?" The use of the forename left Crane perturbed, feeling Loki reach inside his mind and digging after a past best left unburied. "You escaped from Arkham Asylum this very night. Was the stay there a result of your involvement in the gassing of the Narrows, killing and hurting thousands of innocents, or something else? Prisons are for criminals, madhouses for madmen. Was it spotlight you sought? Or revenge? Or simply hate against your brethren, fuelled by the memories of a traumatic event that perhaps occurred in your childhood , involving something you still f— _Ngh_!"

Crane tightened the bandages, hard. "Oh, I'm sorry," he said, not sounding sorry at all.

Loki looked like he was about to whack Crane's head against the wall until it cracked. But they both knew resorting to violence would make him lose their game of wits.

"Though I'd prefer if you didn't psychoanalyze me and make assumptions. On that area, you are," a bitter, chuckle, "clearly not a professional." Pride kept him talking. "The bat gassed me with my own recipe."

Not all the assumptions were false. "Ironic how the good doctor isn't immune to his own creation."

"Shut up." If tones were acidic, his would have the pH of zero. "I survived the same dosage that nearly killed Rachel Dawes—the DA's girlfriend who the Joker blew up—without an antidote." Loki made a mental note to research who these people were. "Obviously, it had side effects. Because of the shrinks at Arkham's blatant incompetence, I had to battle them purely on my own."

Loki's smirk had a vicious edge. "Thank you for trusting me with all this knowledge."

The scale was in balance again.

The bandage now covered Loki's entire arm and chest, hiding the damaged skin. Crane rose. "There are clothes over in that box. I assume you know how to dress yourself?" Loki responded with a sour look. "Good. You'll take the bedroom on the right, mine is on the far left. Feel free to use the kitchen. Here." Crane got a glass of water for him, instructed him to find the ibuprofen pills in the closet, and walked out.

They would avoid each other to the best of their ability. Quite a feat in an apartment as small as Crane's.

Crane went into his the toxin workshop slash bedroom, but was too agitated to work. He opened an unused notebook. He stopped to think, making up a codename, in case Loki should look. Then he started writing, headlining it

_The psychological profile of Mr. World_

This would be a fascinating partnership, indeed.

.

.

_he was in a bleak room  
surrounded by dozens of windows_

_on the roof, on the walls, on the floor_

_in the windows were grotesque, deranged monsters, covered in blotches of disease, twisted faces pressed up against the glass, shrieking_

_"let me out, let me out  
letmeoutletmeoutletmeoutletmeout"_

_and then the realization came_

_the_

_windows_

_were_

_mirrors_

_the setting changed and the boy was running in the snow, hunted_

_("I'll hunt the monsters down and will slay them all!)_

_and he fell into eternal darkness, and he turned towards the light to see another boy at the end of the tunnel, and he wanted to scream but he cannot because there was something keeping his lips shut, and the other boy left, leaving him alone in the dark, but reappears, blurred, with a weapon this time_

.

.

Loki awoke.

It was one of those dreams where the story had been chosen, digging deeper into his subconscious in search for buried truth. He'd been painfully aware that it was a dream, but could do nothing about it.

He touched his lips. There was nothing there.

Of course not. It was only in his mind, swirls and whorls of colour, a smeared painting of wit and hate. His body was just a machine, an assembly of interconnected components, bones inside muscle inside flesh. Worm food. Transportation. Worm shit. In his head laid the true horror, both for others and himself.

The clock showed 02:30, but returning to sleep would be impossible. Loki dressed. One could've mistaken him for Midgardian, in his white shirt and black trousers, a preference discovered when he visited Thor in his exile. A master of deceit was a master of disguise.

He walked into the living room, and proceeded to stare out the window, to the storm that raged outside. Magic moved over and under his fingers, like a green silk bond. His thoughts drifted to truer nightmares.

There were no visitors to his cell, leaving him alone with his dark thoughts. Loki remembered the Chitauri prison planets, full of blood from open wounds, pus from infections, sweat from crowdedness, and rot from corpses. Rebels, traitors, thieves; all ended up as vacant eyed skeletons lying in their own excrement, beaten (bones so broken they crawled around as mutilated spiders) and starved (forced to eat meat from dead—sleeping?—cellmates) and raped (physically and mentally). The idea of being persuaded by the Chitauri for compensation for their loss had quickened his scheming process.

_Click!_

Someone turned a small light on, illuminating the figure in the chair beside it.

"Crane." Loki's breath fogged up the window glass. Tension settled in his shoulders.

The man had demonstrated cleverness unnatural for his kin, attacking as soon as he opened his mouth. "Do you miss your home world?" Sometimes it appeared as if he lapsed into another personality, one who lulled one into a false sense of security to sink his metaphorical claws into one's mind, hunting for weakness. "Or is it something out there you fear?"

He was a worthy player, so Loki continued their game. "Curious, Scarecrow?"

"Talking about things instead of repressing them may help you."

"Does sharing secrets make mortals feel better?"

"Trust is an important manufacturer." Crane sighed, then attacked, _hard_ , "How's your arm?"

Loki's lips turned into a thin line. "Fine," he forced out as he recalled Crane's words. 'No partnership would work without the tiniest amount of trust'. "I do not miss Asgard, no." In the fog on the glass, he drew an Othala rune. "I have travelled through worlds, but have no home. I was born in snow, brought up in fire, but lived in darkness." Enough to paint a picture, but not enough to fill in details.

"Sounds like a riddle," Crane said.

"Truth often does." Loki smiled bitterly. "How about this one? I'm your follower in the light, yet I'm invisible in the night. At various sizes I appear, I won't harm you, have no fear. What am I?"

"Riddles aren't _my_ speciality, but... You're a shadow." Crane twirled his fingers together, studying Loki's features, obviously looking for cracks in his stone façade. He reached for a leather bound book. "You do not cages of predictability, control and light. You never intended to rule this world. Too boring."

Loki thought of prisons and dream mirrors. "I needed to. Get. Out." Out from the basket of rotten eggs. _(Let me out letmeoutletmeoutletmeout)_

"Or you'd go mad." Madd _er_. "I understand that, Loki." _I understand you._ He turned a yellowing page in the book, and said, "You did not answer what you feared."

An insult rested on Loki's tongue, but he said, "I did not, no."

The round was over.

"I need to know of any alterations you desire for my toxin."

"If it still makes the subject feel intense terror, then no."

They had nothing more to say to each other. Not tonight.

First when he was about to leave, Loki saw that Crane was reading a book on Norse mythology. Loki briefly wondered what would the invasion from the Chitauri result in, when a visit from young Asgardians could start entire religions.

Crane peered at him over his glasses. "You may borrow some books, if you wish." That was the best apology he would offer for lying to him earlier. "Like we established, creating a new brand of Fear Toxin could be a lengthy process. Fear is a... delightful, but dangerous thing. You wouldn't understand."

Loki remembered entering the party in Germany, hearing the exquisite orchestra music, and seeing the mortals scramble about in their fancy clothes. He remembered the sound the body made as it hit the altar (what was it if not a sacrifice to himself?) that started a different orchestra with drumming feet and screaming sonatas. But most of all he remembered the **fear** in the air and the power it brought.

"I think I do."

Loki left for his room, sleepiness finally reaching him again.

He walked past the mirror.

In the mirror stood a monster.

(the monster parents tell their children about at night: don't go too far or the frost giants will come and eat you up)

The time in prison had no done him any favours, no. His skin was deathly pale, almost blueish underneath unkempt, dark hair too long for his liking. He clicked his tongue in annoyance. Appearances told too much. His eyes were fiercely alive though, unlike how they were when he was imprisoned.

He stepped into the bathroom and took a shower, old blood disappearing down the drain. Afterwards, Loki put on new bandages, searched through a drawer and found a scissor.

.

.

_The psychological profile of Mr. World_

_From the start, the exemplar must've been overlooked._

Crane almost bit on the pencil end, remembered how unhygienic it was and continued writing.

_Possible mental illnesses: Sociopathy, Narcissistic Personality Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder_

_...trust issues..._

_...emotionally dethatched..._

_...craves power..._

_.. and has a history of lies and tricks and seems familiar with namecalling (verbally abused or bullied?)..._

_To be studied further._

In the dim light of the living room, Crane grinned. This was his way of relaxing.

.

.

Tension was like tar in mental gears, hindering intelligent discussion.

Crane wasn't unaccustomed to it. It had been beaten into him by his fanatically religious great grandmother from an early age. He easily recognised it in Loki's face and posture whenever he was near. But to build trust, one had to _know_ each other. Social interaction was only warfare concealed.

One could imagine Crane's satisfaction as he turned on the TV screen in the morning and Loki's face was plastered over it.

"—notorious for his involvement in the extraterrestrial invasion of New York, rumoured to be the organizer of it all!" The man on the news continued blabbering, unwittingly giving Crane everything he needed to know. It was a press conference live from New York, the police commissioner spluttering scripted lines.

A hand was laid on the chair Crane sat in. He nearly jumped.

"Didn't think they'd broadcast it so fast," Loki said. "SHIELD must've failed covering it up."

"Too big to be an exercise, plus live interviews and filming. New York isn't as corruptible as here, where the media prefers cash over truth. The saying is that Gotham is the city of dark, and New York—or Metropolis, as it's named on the common tongue—the city of light."

"Light and blood and shit," Loki corrected, thinking 'people' was a synonym for the latter.

"Well yes, it _is_ a city." They continued watching. Interviews with supposed witnesses showed that none of them really knew how Loki looked like. Attention hungry fools. Afterwards, footage from the invasion played along with the standard warnings. "What did you hope to gain?" Crane asked, softly.

"You already know."

Both their 'downfalls' had achieved some things and failed at others. Both individuals were cocktails of bottled up emotions and desires for vengeance and chaos.

"Perhaps," Crane said with a smile, filling in the blanks of the psychological profile he was constructing in his mind.

The footage shifted, the newsman reappearing, moving on to other subject. "Around midnight another ruthless criminal escaped from Gotham City's Arkham Asylum for the criminally insane..." It was Crane's time to stir, growing sick of listening to tasteless theories about his insanity.

"What did _you_ hope to gain?" Loki asked.

"I achieved my personal goals."

"Which was?"

Crane straightened. "I think you know as well." He had a distinct feeling Loki was smirking.

Other, more positive news came on, featuring a couple reunited after 40 years.

Crane finally looked up. "You've cut your hair," he said, honestly surprised. Loki watched him. "It indicates that you're accustomed of taking care of yourself."

Loki's lip twitched. The beginning of a smile or a grimace? "Most would consider it a... womanly act."

"Tch. Small minds assign qualities they don't posses to groups they consider weaker, motivated by envy or fear. People fear what they don't understand."

"Where I came from, magic is also looked down upon, as well as intelligence. Alcohol and fornication are the foundations of Asgard. Science and magic are considered a waste of time."

"A wonder how they have survived so long."

Loki looked at Crane like he'd understood something very important.

Complete trust was unachievable, but the a portion of the initial tension had seeped out, no longer slowing their machinery minds.

Loki gestured to the table. "Let's us discuss the plans."

"Yes," Crane agreed. "Let's talk."

.

.

He glided soundlessly from rooftop to rooftop, those catching a glimpse dismissing it as the darkness that flooded every crack and corner. The Batman was an embodiment of Gotham City.

Gotham was the home of the Bat, the darkness of his streets what he thrived on. Its sorrows had passed through his doors. Its stories had unfolded before him. He had come to know her people, tasted poisons, and knew at a glance what a man was and what he'd done.

Rachel Dawes' death had sharpened his senses. The occasional pain in his leg would never let him forget.

Beneath him, the streets—the open sewers of crime and corruption—slumbered, disturbed only by the occasional drunk or streetwalker. Most cops weren't foolish enough to come to the Narrows, it be night or day. They weren't welcome, the Narrows having their own laws and their own system. Batman magnified the lenses in one of his new masks, searching through Gotham's streets bellow. On a stormy night like this the crime rate was low, even with the bat signal shattered.

He was searching for clues to the whereabouts to the Scarecrow with no luck so far, the storm worsening with black clouds pouring icy rain. The policemen hunting the Crane had ended up in fetal positions screaming for their mommies, underestimating him. He'd left a trail of madmen that attacked everything in sight.

"Any updates?" Batman spat blood as he spoke into the communicator, teeth pomegranate red from bleeding gums, the colour of the sky. Dawn approached. Soon, the sun would rise and kill all dark things, as the cops if they spotted him, believing him to be Harvey Dent's murderer.

 _"'I'm afraid not, sir."_ The communicator grated. Batman turned up the volume. _"...eight hour rest. Minimum."_ Batman needed no rest, but Bruce Wayne did. _"Then the old family fish soup recipe, and a session of the Chua K'a massage."_

Batman was about to reply, but someone screamed, interrupting him.

If Gotham slept, even its dreams were twisted.

"Got to go," Batman said, moving towards the sound. In the wind, his cape fluttered like wings.

 _"Master W—"_ the communicator blinked red, muted.

The scream came from a young girl cornered by nasty looking men. Two grabbed her arms, prying her against the brick wall. Another one loosened his zipper. "If she's screamin' now," he said, "let's see how loud she gets when she gets a piece o' this!" The laughter came to an abrupt halt when something crashed with his head. He fell and didn't get up.

Heavy footsteps echoed from down the ally.

Batman, crouching upon the rails of the spiral stairs, lowered his bat shurikens. The weapon that had made the man unconscious swung back, landing in the owner's hand. He was a muscled man with flaxen hair and a strong jaw. Batman experienced a déjà vu. "Scan his face," Batman mumbled to the communicator, soundlessly moving closer.

 _"That man is Thor, unofficial member of the Avengers, SHIELD's—the organization you researched, months ago—superhero pet project,"_ Alfred told the outcome of the facial scan, voice adjusted to be heard only by Batman. _"Rumoured to be an actual Norse god. Inhuman durability, strength and speed. Be careful, sir."_

"Get him!" one of the girl's assaulters shouted.

If things got too messy, the Batman would step in. For now, he'd watch and analyze.

They circled Thor. The matching tattoos showed that they were in gang members.

High on adrenaline (and drugs, judging by the bad aim), one swung a bat hammered full of sharp, rusty nails at Thor. The bat broke upon contact. A splinter pierced through the man's arm, and he shrieked, backing off. Like sharks, the blood in the air provoked the others to attack. Thor defended well against them, restraining himself. Batman could respect him for that. But he quieter than what Batman would've expected from an Asgardian. It seemed like his thoughts weren't on the battle.

Thor was busy blocking a bat covered in barbed wire, and he did not see the scissors that was about to get planted into his back.

He turned around to see a big black bat throw a man into a lamp post with both shoulders dislocated.

It was natural for them to meet on a battlefield.

Back to back, they handled the remaining men in less than ten seconds. Squeaking, they crawled away, dragging their hurt buddies with them.

Afterwards, Thor and Batman regarded each other, but the terrified squeak from the girl interrupted them. She clasped both hands over her mouth.

"Are you alright?" Thor asked. The girl stared at him like he was a monster, and ran off. His shoulders slumped.

Did he expect thanks? Thor clearly hadn't heard of how Gotham's unforgiving and uncompromising nature reflected its citizens as well as its knights. Batman drew his cape around him like an invisibly shield, retreating back into darkness. It hid the human underneath.

Thor turned around. He did not look hostile. "You must be Gotham's guardian," he greeted, gravely. "I seek your city no harm, friend. I am looking for my... a criminal, who escaped from New York to Gotham."

Alfred spoke again. _"Unconfirmed sources say the person who arranged the attack on New York was also an Asgardian. Some claim that they are related."_

"I'll need more information."

"Of course," Thor said. As he quickly as he could muster, he summarized Loki's involvement in the attack.

Batman cut him off before he could finish, "That's enough. I'll see what I can do." He threw a black, round object over to Thor. "If it blinks white, meet me on this building's rooftop."

Thor took a deep breath, "Thank you..." The Batman was gone. Something told Thor this was the norm. Gotham was never apologized, or showed gratitude.

.

.

Crane poured both of them some more coffee.

"The sewers, then," Loki settled on.

"Yes. It worked last time, and New York is far too busy fixing the surface to care what's underneath. I paid the Gotham mafia well, and I'm sure they've heard of me. At least, heard of what I'll do if they don't help us. I'm sure it'll work out." Loki smirked. "But we have to insure the incapacity of the superheroes."

"I do not storm into battle unprepared, Crane. I already know their weaknesses."

"Go on."

"The Tesseract had certain quirks. I made SHIELD agents tell me everything he knew about them. As pawns of SHIELD, they told me... quite a lot." His memory was as sharp as ever.

Crane stood up reached into his breast pocket, removed an untitled notebook, and opened it on the table. "Fill me in, Loki. Their identities, then their weaknesses." He clicked his pen. Loki started speaking.

_1: Hawkeye. Clinton "Clint" Francis Barton. Bow wielding SHIELD agent. Human. Orphaned._

_Sold out his friends. Killed innocents. Regret._

_2: Black Widow. Natalia "Natasha" Alianovna Romanova. Gun wielding SHIELD agent._

_Her past, spent as a murderous assassin. Saved by Hawkeye. Owes him a debt._

_3: Ironman. Tony Stark. Billionaire, son of the founder of Stark Enterprises. Genius intelligent._

_Has a piece of shrapnel is his chest that can kill him any second after a little trip in Afghanistan._

_4: Captain America. Steve Rodgers. Genetically enhanced super soldier, frozen for 40 years._

_Memories of WWII, struggles with adapting to the age._

_5: Bruce Banners. Genius scientists. Turns into a giant beast when emotionally provoked._

_Honestly Crane what do you think_ (Crane scribbled over that, ignoring Loki's sniggers.) _Afraid of losing control and killing more people._

_6: Thor. Asgardian. Enhanced strength and durability._

Silence fell, delicate and brittle, threatening to dry and snap.

"A friend of yours?" Crane asked and looked up from the notebook, where he'd sacrificed one page to each Avengers member. He was analyzing each emotion and each word, like always.

"No." Loki sighed. "He was my brother, once."

"Oh... _oh_."

Another sigh. "It's more complicated than a mere sibling rivalry. He destroyed my life. But I do haunt him. His perfect light doesn't shine half as bright without a darkness to contrast it."

"That," Crane said, "is a weakness indeed. Using your brother's love for you—"

"There is no love, barely an illusion of care, warped and weak."

Crane waved that away like swatting a fly, to Loki's bemusement. "Whatever it is, we can use it. None of them are without weakness, without fear. If they resist, we need to verbally trigger them. We'll take one at a time."

"A building would be the perfect location for that. Rooms and halls and walls..." Crane agreed. "But I must ask... What about the Batman?"

"What about him? He belongs to Gotham, not New York."

"You belong to Gotham as well. Would he not come after you?"

Crane's lips became a thin line. "I guess he would." He looked at the clock, noticing that they'd talked for hours. "We'll come up with something. If you'll excuse me, I'd like to work on the Fear Toxin before I go to sleep."

"Of course," Loki said, grabbing Crane's Edgar Allen Poe collective hardcover. Crane disappeared, taking his superhero notes with him. On the table laid a second, forgotten notebook.

.

.

Odd how successful they were on ignoring each other.

Sure, sometimes they discussed literature, music, and shared a few meals. They'd even discussed the plans a few times. Crane was mostly in his toxin workshop, and Loki used Crane's book collection to pass the time. The temperature had fallen, rain becoming hail.

Loki was growing bored.

Terrible things happened when Loki was bored.

He stood in the doorway of Crane's room. "How long will it take?" Had Crane not been so absorbed in his work, he'd heard the quiet, dangerous undertone.

"Scientific rigour and thoroughness is important." He mixed two ingredients in an attempt to create a modified version. He held a thin glass up in the air, shook it, and the contents became yellow. After that, he wrote some chemical calculations down in a notebook. "It is a very delicate process, especially considering the harmful gasses. Nothing your kin would understand, of course."

Loki did not like that. Not one bit. Believing he couldn't understand was the same as assuming he was unintelligent; a sin not many had committed without suffering afterwards. "Try me, doctor."

"Fine then, I'll try word it easier. Considering the effects of the drugs, normal men would easily submit to my... _realm_." Oblivion. That was where his victims finally went, like they'd showed on the news. Thoughtless, drooling things. "The Avengers aren't normal as far I'm concerned. The Batman already manages to fight off Fear Toxin strong enough to drive ten men insane, and mass produces antidotes for my newer inventions. Considering that there are scientists on their team, I need to make the code harder to crack."

"So you're finished."

"Technically, yes."

"Have you tested it yet?"

"We'll find test subjects in the Narrows."

"Is there no possible way of doing it sooner? I have no desire to hunt down lab rats in this weather."

Crane warningly held up a glove consisting of several syringe fingers. "Unless you volunteer, you'll have to wait, my _friend_." Loki tensed, making Crane smirk triumphantly. He went back to his work again.

"Would it kill?" Loki inquired.

"Kill? No. Murder is so boring." Without turning around, he waved Loki away. "Leave me, and don't disturb me anymore."

Loki walked outside. Coolness twisted around his heart and brain, making his mind sharpen. Crane had insulted him enough. What was the mortal saying? _'The last straw._ ' He looked at the man. _'And I will rip you apart, Scarecrow, until the straws fly everywhere.'_

Crane wasn't the only one capable of manipulating someone into a false sense of security.

(Bar your neck. Talk. Really, really _talk_. The tension falters. You're not a threat anymore.)

The little shit hadn't even turned around.

Loki prepared himself for the hurt, because although most of his magic had been set loose, it still pained him to do greater magic. He started to whisper in ancient tongues Midgardians hadn't heard for centuries. It was a complicated spell, although he'd managed it in a millisecond before.

A crack, starting small, spread in one of the toxin containers. It poured out with a hissing noise.

Loki retreated, clutching his side where the flesh was already blackening; proof of old rituals and the magical bindings cast upon him.

Crane jumped, panicking as he tried to keep the Fear Gas from leaking out. He accidently inhaled some of the greenish smoke and the effects were immediate. Loki imagined all sorts of horrid beasts reflected in Crane's lessening pupils as he looked around the room, hysteric. It hadn't broken his mind just yet, and he stumbled towards the exit, expression equally terrified and murderous. "Son of a b—"

Loki gestured once, and the toxin _attacked_ Crane, then twice, and the door slammed shut in Crane's face.

The handle shook, but the door wouldn't bulge. Not a word was heard, Crane no doubt holding his breath. The shaking grew weaker and weaker until it became still. Floorboards creaked. Then, complete silence. Until the screaming began.


	3. Unburied Crows

The alarm above the stove rang, and it wasn't food that was finished.

Loki looked at Johnson's wristwatch (still speckled with crusted blood), confirming that Crane had been trapped inside a room full of Fear Toxin for 15 minutes.

He collected the test sheet he'd made, and entered by pressing a rag to his face. The toxin laid like a mist over the workshop, only lit up by luminescent liquid inside shining glass, and a flickering streetlight outside. He opened the window, and Fear Toxin was carried away by the storm.

Crane was nowhere to be seen.

Then there was a noise

_scratch scratch scratch_

coming from under the desk.

Loki bent down and found Crane. He had his arms around his knees. His fingernails were stubbed, bloodied and bitten. There were strange symbols scratched into the floorboards.

How fascinating.

"Crane," Loki tried. No reaction. "Scarecrow." Nothing. "Jonathan."

Slowly, Crane turned towards him, having a hard time focusing, distracted by something behind Loki. The usual air of confidence was gone, leaving a trembling shell of a man. This was no criminal genius. It was a repressed part of him. A child. _Jonathan_. "Are you… real?"

"I'm very real, I assure you. Do you remember me?" There was no hint of recognition on his face. Memory loss, hallucinations, constant trembling, dizziness... Loki wrote down the Fear Toxin effects. "Come out of there."

"Can't."

"Yes you can. Come out. Now."

Again, no reaction.

Loki grabbed Jonathan's leg. A sneer; a flash of teeth. He wrestled Jonathan forth, sneer turning triumphant as he bent Jonathan's foot in an odd angle, ceasing the kicking. The glass containers on the desk shook as Loki forced him out. Empty ones fell and shattered.

To ensure survival, a child instinctually sought protection from an adult. The knowledge of this did not lessen Loki's surprise as Jonathan's fighting came to a halt and he clutched the Asgardian, shuddering violently. Had this part of Crane decided to trust Loki, of all people?

The Fear Toxin was truly magnificent.

"What do you see?" Loki asked.

"I don't want to."

Loki lured him further into a protective embrace, and said, "Look." In Jonathan's head, it echoed, "Look, look, look..."

He did

_(the world was melting, with a drooling void where a ceiling ought to be, black like the Darkness before the Light which his great grandmother always spoke of, releasing the horrible beasts that hadn't eaten in eons)_

and started screaming again.

Loki simply pressed Jonathan's jaw shut, placing the second hand in front of his eyes. "Calm down." He spread two fingers, leaving a crack. "Look at me. Yes, good. Tell me what you saw."

"Crows," Jonathan answered. "Trained crows. Her crows."

Another moment passed.

_'Gotcha.'_

"Come," Loki crooned, guiding Jonathan out of the room, "let us talk about _her_."

.

.

Tonight was a night of the Bat.

As she applied makeup in her room, Michelle could feel it. She wasn't psychic or pious or anything, it'd just been like that ever since she'd met him in the cellar of a cop party gone wrong. She still had scars, but also her life, thanks to the dark knight. Odd how his chivalry extended to prostitutes.

Somehow, she'd ended up as one of his informants. Who knew Gotham's underbelly better than her kin?

Many thought Batman was the mirror image of Gotham City. Streetwalkers knew better. Gotham was an old whore, bloody and beaten and full of disease. _"Fucked in the ass by politicians and lawyers,"_ Michelle's madam had said once, _"leaving it to the crooks to make more holes to fuck."_

The curtains danced in the wind. A dark shape had entered through the window. Her hand did not quiver as she applied mascara.

"Michelle," he rasped. His voice sounded like it'd been drenched in bourbon, smoked, and driven over with a bus. The Voice of Gotham. "I need an update. This week only."

Calm consumed her. "Black Billy's out of jail, and Jericho's corpse was found in a dumpster, killed for knifing his pimp… Lil' Laura nearly got gang raped yesterday—by the way, thanks for saving her—and…" Michelle continued talking of events he might find of interest. "…was set on fire, and some guy at the Might Martin has gotten his face torched, just like the dead DA, going on being attacked by a wizard in the night..."

"His name."

She wrote down a name and an address on a hand chief using an eyeliner pencil. She pressed her lips against it to remove excess lipstick, leaving an indirect kiss to the protector of prostitutes. Michelle let it fall behind her, knowing he would catch it.

And then he was gone.

.

.

Terror had planted a seed inside him, its vines squeezing around his heart.

Wind whirled around him, spewing dust. He was being dragged backwards through a grey cornfield. The hand was pale and spindly, and oh god, it was _hers_.

Jonathan felt a wind blow through his soul.

**You insolent child! I've raised you, fed you, cared for you, and what do I get in return? You introduce sin to my house with these repulsive books! Lovecraft, Joyce, Poe... Devil's men, all of them, inflicting you with demons! Don't you stare at me with those big eyes, boy, or my birds will peck them out!**

"No please," he wailed. He was shoved inside the sanctuary. The floor was soggy with rot. Plants had curled around the ramshackle stone walls. Real monsters didn't hide under beds. He looked up to see them clinging to the ceiling, wings rotten, leering down at him. "Not the crows, please!"

**Oh yes, the crows. We must cleanse the sin, fire with fire. You've been a very bad boy, Jonathan.**

"I'll be good I promise _don't leave me_!" The sanctuary creaked and twisted into a whirlwind tunnel. The monsters' feathers and flesh slid off like wet paint, blending in with the whirlpool of colour. It left skeletons with grinning beaks. "...I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry..." His mind was a maze he was lost in.

**A** _**very** _ **bad boy—**

"Jonathan."

A voice rang through the world and broke it.

Somebody snapped their fingers in front of his face. His surroundings moved into focus, revealing a room, not the Crane family property. The one who called himself Loki cleared his throat, mildly annoyed. "Get up from the floor."

He complied. The man pushed him, and Jonathan fell, thinking he'd fall into a void, but ended up sprawled on a... couch? The dead crows were still lurking in the shadows.

"You are in your living room. _Breathe_. Stop apologizing and tell me what in Odin's name that was.."

That popped the bubble, truth gushing out of him. "Great grandmother used to throw me in the chapel. Lock the doors. And then they'd attack. The beasts. Her beasts." She'd loved them far more than she'd loved him.

"It was so cold in there. When it rained, water would drip through holes in the roof. I saw her once, smearing the suit with vermin blood. If she'd caught me, she'd gotten the belt, or filled a bath to hold me under."

He told Loki about the scarecrow in the field, the swarm of birds that engulfed it, and how his great grandmother controlled them. "And so I saw the most powerful forces on earth."

"What did you see?"

His bright eyes seemed treacle black.

"Fear and control."

He disappeared into his mind for a couple moments. When he came back to himself, Loki was regarding him strangely. Jonathan tried to recognise the emotion on his face.

Why, it almost looked like pity.

Irritation soon replaced it. "You're bleeding. You probably hit your head when you fainted."

Jonathan pointed to a box without looking in its direction.

The box' content made Loki snort. The band aids had pictures of the Batman, who Loki knew well of. In the prison, he'd been behind the imprisonment of one too many thugs.

The Batman themed band aids, mugs and shirts had been a joke from Crane's contacts. They were all over the black market. Most citizens didn't want a murderer's merchandise. Crane would've never told him to use those. But Jonathan did, and Loki had to comply, of course, always a helper of poor abused children.

Loki placed two bat band aids in an x shape on Jonathan's forehead. The act left him feeling exposed instead of powerful, and he withdrew, pretending to be fumbling with a vinyl player seated on top of the bat box. He found a record with some classical music and put it on for calming purposes.

He wrote something down on a sheet.

"Do you want anything? A glass of water, perhaps?"

Jonathan struggled to comprehend. Then it hit him, "Yes! T—Thank you!"

Loki held a glass under the sink, and turned the old fashioned whirl. The drains creaked like a beast was moving through them. The sink choked, and finally spewed a thick, murky juice. Loki considered the pros and cons of giving it to Crane, and opted for no when he saw something move in the mixture.

He ended up warming a glass of cow milk. Upon receiving it, unaware of the horrors Loki had spared him, Jonathan promptly refused.

"Liquid nutrition is crucial in a state such as yours," Loki explained.

Jonathan looked away, still shaking his head.

"You really should drink it."

Lighting cracked outside, widening the shadows and exploding the ceiling lamp.

In Loki's shadow, Jonathan saw a familiar, spindly shape.

**Drink it up, Jonathan, or I'll get great grandfather's cane.**

"Please, I don't... It makes my stomach hurt really bad, I'm sorry, please don't..." He started coughing, clutching himself. He was back in the dusty dining room, his great grandmother materializing.

**If you dare vomit, you'll be spending a week in the mausoleum.**

" _No_!"

Out of a sudden he grew violent. With brute strength, he smacked the glass away from her, and wrapped his hands around her neck and squeezed and squeezed and squeezed until her mouth foamed like a dog and then he squeezed some more—

And then it was Loki, not his great grandmother.

His antics came to a sudden halt, but far too late.

The record on the vinyl player had gotten stuck, repeating nightmarishly high piano tones over and over.

Loki sat up. He looked more shocked than pained, although it quickly transformed to cold rage. A glass shard glinted maliciously. "Déjà vu," he simply said.

In an instant, the shard cut Jonathan's cheek with near surgical precision. He recoiled, and collided with a bookshelf. Books fell over him. Loki advanced.

"Hold still and this'll be over _quick_."

"I'm sorry," Jonathan whispered, curling up, "I'm really sorry."

Loki regarded him for a moment. Then he threw away the bloody shard.

He bent down.

"I think I have what I need. During your childhood you were frequently beaten. Sometimes you were drenched in vermin blood and locked inside an old chapel while trained birds attacked you. Correct?" Even if Loki wasn't compassionate—especially when it came to mortals—he felt a little ill on Crane's behalf.

"Sometimes I'd be in the god house 'till morning." He started scratching his forearms, nervous. Soon there was blood under his fingernails.

Loki grabbed Jonathan's elbow. "Stop that."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize."

The muscle under a blue eye twitched. "I'm sorry."

Loki shook his head. "After the intake of your own poison, how did you battle the after effects?" Receiving an answer was impossible before since it'd obviously hurt Crane's pride.

"Arkham. Pills. White pills and pink pills and blue pills." Some kind of giggle escaped him, but the smile vanished right after, forehead ceased up. His mouth moved without his concert. "Took weeks. Months. Years."

Loki clicked his tongue. He had hoped that the effects would go over sooner. It hadn't been that much, anyway—it wasn't like he'd been soaked in it for hours. But what if... "Sleep would be good for you."

"Not tired."

"It wasn't a question." Loki grabbed his hair and slammed his head against the bookshelf, effectively putting him out. The glasses lay on the floor, broken in half.

.

.

THE MIGHTY MARTINI was a cheap dive that hadn't been cleaned out since the Roosevelt Administration, and the 'THE' was unlit and both last letters of the other words had fallen down, so it was called MIGHT MARTIN in the street tongue.

The bouncer guarding the backdoor crossed his arms, scowling at the approaching shadow. "You enter through the front like everybody else pal." And then he saw who it was. "Oh shit, sorry, didn't see it way you."

Jazz blazed, and someone had turned up the volume because it was so crowded in there. Men sat elbow to elbow, drinking and chatting and smoking, ashtrays full and bottles empty. The bartender pretended to be busy with a small towel on a glass that wasn't getting any blanker.

Batman entered and everything went quiet. He could've easily snuck in or waited until dawn, but he wanted to make an entrance. He spoke a name.

"Walter Carlson."

As on command, the men slowly turned their heads. One first, then several. They looked at the back of a pilot jacketed man whose cap read _Dine 'em Wine 'em 69 'em_. "Thank you very fuckin' much." Walter Carlson held up a glass of rye whiskey and punished it a little, wincing as the busthead burned his throat. "What did I ever do to you rat bastards, huh?"

He stood up, swaying a bit. His face had a handprint formed burn. Spit and booze ran from where his front teeth ought to be. He grabbed a bottle, broke its lower half on the counter, and swung it against Batman. Batman caught his wrist and dislocated it.

In a blur of pain, Carlson was shoved out into the street.

The bouncer pushed the onlookers back inside. "Don't get mad at me! Go argue with _him_ if you want!"

Batman grabbed Carlson's collar. His jaw was set, chin stubbed and dirty, nostrils flaring and his eyes bloodshot and wild. The Fear Toxin streaming through Gotham City from a bedroom in the Narrows had effects, although small. Frankly, Batman was already terrifying. "The burn mark. Talk, now."

"There was this guy, okay?! I was walking home, minding my own damn business, and he just randomly attacks..." he stopped, Adam's apple bobbing. "Okay okay! Was gonna mug him, alright? His own fault really, walking in the Narrows at night..."

" _Details_."

A smelly wetness spread on Carlson's jeans, pouring out from a pant leg. "Um, uh, ne—near Winston's TVs, y'know, with the screens that always play th—the news..."

Batman knew where that was. It was around the street where he'd lost the Scarecrow. The feeling of ice cubes rolling around in his stomach warned him of further events, but his face remained stoic. "How long?"

"Six days, I mean seven... dun' remember..."

Batman let go. He had what he needed. Carlson landed in a pile of garbage, drenched in his own piss. Balls returning, he gave Batman the finger. "Fucking bat," he spat, "violating my rights like that." He got a ransacking as a reply, inner pockets turned out, change and bottle caps splattering onto the wet pavement. He fought, but froze when he saw Batman holding up a small bag of white. "No, shit, that cost three months' work, please don't—"

(The Bat remembered: _'Mommy's dead. Daddy's dead. Brucie's dead.'_ He must be terrible, like criminals. _'I shall become a bat.'_ )

He ripped the bag. Its contents fell, like snow, or dust. Batman left the man trying to save some in a puddle on the ground and repeatedly muttering "No" like a broken radio. He did not think much of it. He had a mission tonight, and that thought made him function as if he'd actually slept in the last 48 hours.

Batman hurried through narrow alleys and abandoned buildings. The Tumbler waited underneath a reflective cover.

He set the settings to autopilot on a patrol route designed to detect and avoid police cars, multitasking. Rain tapped against the windows.

Hacking was another art he mastered. Businesses in the Narrows had enough to buy CCTV, but not enough to buy reliable anti hacking products. Winston's TVs was no different.

Batman transmitted the surveillance files to the main computer in the cave.

"Alfred." The butler appeared on the screen, cleaning a bloody bat shuriken. "Make the computer examine the people from hour 00:00 to 08:00 from the last two weeks and compare it to the image of the Asgardian criminal."

The butler nodded and a loading bar appeared on the screen. One and a half minute passed until the Tumbler's screens blinked MATCH FOUND. An enhanced figure appeared on the screen beside the original prison photo. Despite the disguise, the computer's measurements succeeded in recognizing his face.

"He's heading east, sir."

The Tumbler made a shrieking U turn, scaring the life out of a nearby gathering of homeless.

"I'm following him through other stores' cameras. He seems to have no fixed location in mind."

The videos were on the screens, pausing and zooming in on Loki. "It was during the hours after Dr. Crane's escape, and the same place, as well. Do you think...?" Alfred's lips were a thin line.

Batman slowed down. The cold thing happened to his stomach again. "Yes," he grimly answered, "I lost him here." The streets were eerily empty. "No surveillance cameras. No cops. No allies." Allies. Soldiers. Enemies. In his mind, this was a war without an end. "Searching the whole area would take too much time. I need—"

"A meal. And eight hours sleep. And yes Master Wayne, I do know bats are nocturnal, but you do not hang upside down in the attic and so is not an actual bat," Alfred lectured, eternally impassive.

Batman did not reply. Sharp light filled the inside of the Tumbler. He'd called Thor.

Alfred sighed, weariness slipping into his expression. "You do realize his little team will follow him, I hope? Your research in SHIELD's dark history spoke for itself. You are in no condition to take them on in your current condition, even if you've researched their weaknesses."

"Goodbye, Alfred." He clicked a button, and then drove off to the meeting place.

Like the best stories in Gotham, it started on a rooftop in the rain.

Somewhere dark, dirty, and preferably abandoned.

There were three gunshots, halting the sound of a couple fighting (or fucking), for a moment, and then they were at it again. In the apartment over, a man yelled at a soccer game on TV. Somewhere else, a car alarm went off. Three women laughed as they walked home from a nightclub, secretly relieved to have made it through another night. Cats shrieked like babies in the night, and dogs answered with dry howls. Gotham had no orchestra but that.

Batman inhaled the scent of gasoline, salt, and rain on pavement—he inhaled the scent of the city, his city. This was a nightly ritual. Inhale, exhale.

He stepped into sight.

Thor stood there, arms crossed. His cape fluttered in the wind. He was horribly out of place, all red and blue and yellow; a king's colours, not Gotham's, a streetwalker. His aura told of frustration, but also of old guilt. He put up a façade once he spotted the approaching figure. "Bat Man. You had information on Loki's whereabouts." Thor threw the white button over to Batman, who threw it back, expression unchanging.

"I meant to meet alone."

Thor didn't know. His body language gave it away. "Alone? But I..." Unlike Batman, he jerked when the aircraft rose behind him, noise drowned out by the heavy downpour.

 _'New technology,'_ Batman realized in the moment before hell. _'Silence is a spy's best friend.'_

Yet there was a loud sizzle of electricity—thunder before lighting—like an old TV turning on, and then there was nothing in the world but light.

His vision exploded with sparks. Pinpricks of colour busted against the darkness of his closed lids. _'As blind as a bat.'_ The exposure made his instincts scream at him to hide, but also strengthened his other senses. Instead of shielding his eyes, he activated the special goggles he'd installed in his cowl.

Batman could see the outline of Thor, shielding his face.

Ironman chose that moment to make his entrance. The stone roof cracked underneath his armour's weight, and he slammed a fist into the ground for good measure. It created the appearance of a warrior's greeting. He ruined in with his next line. "Did I interrupt the first date?" The mask slid up. Bruce Wayne knew that face, and even trusted Tony Stark to an extent.

Batman, however, did not.

"You followed me." Thor stepped forward, half blind, clutching the hammer. His ire wasn't hot, nor electric, but an icy thing. Storm clouds formed above with rapid haste. "Why?"

"Big brother syndrome, maybe. Had to make sure you didn't lose something _very_ precious," he wiggled his eyebrows, "to Mr. Throat Cancer over there. He's so dark, tall and mysterious."

Captain America pushed past Ironman as he jogged out from the aircraft, shutting him up. For Batman, he was silhouetted in the American flag's colours, stars and stripes. Unpractical. Bad camouflage. "Thor," he said, "you're negotiating with a murderer."

The three Avengers turned to Batman, who drew his cape tighter around him.

"There's a price on your head, did you know that?" No answer. Ironman—Stark—turned serious. "Didn't you have a no killing rule?"

"Things change."

"The value of human life does not," Captain America replied. Sometimes a tired war veteran peered out of his

eyes, a man older than any human should be.

Batman's muscles tensed. The light made him seem oddly out of place, a black smear in a bright world. "Thor. We'll finish this another time. Alone."

The aircraft moved as if preparing to launch missiles.

Stark clicked some buttons and mumbled a command, mentioning the name Jarvis. In the next second, the missiles were shut off, undoubtedly from an inside source. It reminded Batman of a project of his own, although Stark's seemed to need an insider in the machine.

"Okay, everybody be cool!" Stark held his arms up in a pacific gesture, and turned to Batman. "Look, bat brain, we just want Loki back into custody. He's the problem. Not you."

"There are ten million people in Gotham," Thor said. "We do not know the city like you do."

"We could help you," Captain America offered.

"I don't need help," Batman snarled. This was his city, his citizens, his criminals.

"Then where is Loki, Bat Man?" Thor asked.

The rain continued pouring.

Batman's fists unclenched. "He's found someone. A partner in crime."

"That must be wrong. Loki is a... lone wolf. He does not work well with people."

"...who don't understand him," Batman finished. "Jonathan Crane, alias Scarecrow, is not just anybody. Owner turned patient at Arkham Asylum. Skilled within chemistry and psychology. Preferred weapon is a nerve gas which causes nightmarish hallucinations. Brilliant, but insane. Seems like the kind of mind Loki could work with."

Thor said nothing.

Stark rubbed his chin, "How are you sure of this?"

'Gut feeling' would not ease them, so Batman begrudgingly admitted, "Lost Crane in the same area where Loki fried the face off a mugger. Bound to meet. Both have been silent for days. They're planning something big, and none of you are prepared."

"I don't know," Stark said, "that's kind of paranoid."

 _'That's what they say about me these days?'_ Batman thought, knuckles losing colour. _'That I'm paranoid?'_ The next pause told Batman that they wouldn't agree without proof. Glaring daggers at everyone and everything, he grumbled (it would've been a whisper hadn't it been so guttural), "Surveillance cameras."

Silence, followed by footsteps.

One two one two; soldiers' march. SHIELD agents. Agent Maria Hill in the front, arms crossed, face wiped clean of emotion like a newly scrubbed bathroom floor. Batman recognised her because of the scar on her cheek, and how she got the look of a person who'd seen a lot. She was an enemy, but a good soldier. "You're the one who hacked into our system, aren't you?" Lines of agents waited behind her.

This wasn't looking good. Stark stepped forth, doing a small round dance between SHIELD and Batman. "I admit it, that was me. Sorry."

Agent Hill deadpanned. "Thirty times over the last two years, Mr. Stark?"

"Thirty times?!" He turned to Batman, mask slipping back on. "Are you some sort of ingenious right wing extremist recluse living in a basement full of computers? Say, any old aunts died recently, leaving you a shitload of money?"

"Step aside, Mr. Stark. We're taking him into custody."

 _'The light,'_ Batman thought, _'I must destroy the light."_

He raised an arm, holding the line launcher. Its hook fired, hitting a building 7 meters away. Bricks and dust fell to the pavement bellow, hook along with it. Batman did not bristle at the supposed miscalculation. He clicked something on the line launcher and the hook returned.

"Well." Ironman shrugged. "Not all escapes can be dramatic oh wait."

A brick was still attached to the line.

"You clever son of a bitch." He thought he saw Batman smirk back at him.

With near inhuman strength, Batman swung the brick into the aircraft's light.

It shattered. Blinking once, then twice, then going off. The SHIELD agents instinctually covered their heads, leaving Batman a split second to move before they got out their guns. An explosion of sparkles and debris, falling in slow motion. Beautiful. Deadly.

And then there was a world of darkness.

Nothing was coincidental. The street lights here hadn't worked for a decade. The nearest buildings' habitants were either cats or dust.

(Inhale, exhale.)

A bottle rolled towards the agents. In the next second, it exploded, and a massive grey smoke cloud surrounded the entire roof.

_Thump!_

The first agent was down, thrown over the side off the roof and into a dumpster bellow. The next three had a net engulf them from nowhere. They laughed at Batman's mistake, and as they began to cut it with a knife, electricity sizzled through them. Another two had their heads slammed together.

Agent Hill slammed a gun into the thing that approached her, and ended up making the newest recruit unconscious. "Bastard!" She dodged the next blow aimed for pressure points on her back.

"There's one guy," someone said, "how hard can it be?" A shadow materialized behind him, and he was dragged off like in a horror flick.

Thor raised his hammer. Something touched him between the shoulder blades, making him go rigid. "Don't," it rasped. "Unnecessary complication. I'll contact you." And then it was gone.

Someone punched Captain America.

"Sorry, cap."

"You're enjoying yourself."

"...No."

The smoke cleared.

People relaxed a bit. Those who'd been wrestling moved apart, pink with humiliation. A few was carried on stretches by the med section. Obviously, they were a team full of agents used for other things than fight ninjas in the dark. That was Black Widow's speciality.

The long string of curse words coming from Agent Hill even impressed Stark. "He's gone."

Or, so they thought. In truth, Batman was sitting on a gargoyle not far from there, using another set of special goggles installed in his cowl. From there, he watched the exchange.

Ironman turned to Thor. "Does he always do that? Pull a Houdini, I mean?" He made some gestures, "Y'know, _poff_? Go up in smoke?" The rain worsened as he spoke. "This place could use a bit of theatrics, being so dull and bleak."

"Coming, Stark?" an agent shouted, entering the ship.

No one asked Thor; he was already wandering off to continue the search for his lost brother. He'd return to Headquarters quite often though, to check if there was any change in the situation.

"Nah. Got a friend here, you see." Stark pulled forth a phone. "Let's see what you've done with your life, Bruce Wayne."

.

.

Jonathan Crane felt like shit.

He'd woken with a headache so agonizing it nearly split his head in half.

Crane clutched his forehead, bending back and forth. Groans continued to escape him. He decided all the gods in the world were against him—probably because he was helping one of them avoid punishment. To his surprise, he felt a rubberlike material placed on his temple and his cheek. It stung when he touched them. Band aids?

"I see we're awake."

Loki stood in the entrance to the bedroom, arms crossed. He was looking for something, scrutinizing Crane's face.

"Coffee..." Crane mumbled.

"Hm?"

"Bring me coffee you useless imbecile or I'll fucking gas you."

"You have a very foul mouth early in the morning." Still, Loki looked somewhat relieved, despite the smirk. "But whatever. I'll make you coffee."

"Without m—"

"Yes, I know you don't like milk."

Crane frowned, but did not think much of it. He laid his head in his hands, sighing. When he pulled away he noticed something odd. There was blood underneath his fingernails. What had happened last night?

Vague memories returned to him. A gas tank had exploded, and... and...

Crane remembered.

" _Motherfucker_."

Footsteps echoed through the house. Crane stood in the doorway to the living room, seething. His chest heaved and fell, hair messy and expression twisted. Loki sat in the sofa, not the least shocked at the uprising.

"You gassed me." The Batman band aids on Crane's forehead made the image quite comical. "Why?"

"You want to know why?" Loki chuckled, and then turned serious. He stood up, taking long strides towards Crane. "I did it because I could."

Crane flinched. He hissed, "There must another reason! You're a tool, but not an idiot. I'll ask you again. Why?"

"Because," Loki said, invading Crane's bubble and pressing him up against the wall, "I saw your notebook."

"Well I'd hope so, it laid right on the t—" Crane blinked. Paled. Cleared his throat. "...Ah. The _other_ notebook."

Loki's tone was soft, "I told you not to psychoanalyze me. It was one of the very first things I told you." Crane opened his mouth to object. Loki's softness was gone, immediately. He slammed a fist right above Crane's head. "Never ask me to repeat myself."

Crane swallowed.

"There, there. You told me such wonderful things. I really feel we have grown so much closer."

"...You had to make sure I wouldn't rat on you," Crane deduced, not sure to be impressed or furious. "You gassed me just so you could manipulate my past out of me."

"That was just an added bonus. I wanted to see you break." Loki placed a finger on Crane's forehead, pushing him against the wall again. "And you did break, so very beautifully, Jonathan." _'Into hundreds of mirror pieces, thrown around so all you saw was me me me—'_

"Liar."

Loki shrugged. "Another thing I told you. If I had said 'I am Loki, who you must not trust', would you still have trusted me?"

"I never did."

"You invited me into your house. Even worse, you turned your back on me," Loki replied. "But yes, I needed blackmail to make sure you didn't chicken out. Wouldn't be so terrifying if it got out that you were just a poor, abused child now, would it?"

A pause followed, very tense from Crane's part. When he managed to control his mouth again, he spoke in dangerous low whispers.

"There are things that shouldn't be said, Loki. It could ruin my work. Arkham's shrinks would've adored to get their hands on the things you've discovered, believing it would explain my mind."

"I will not mention it, Jonathan." If Loki's use of Crane's first name was unsettling, then Crane didn't show it. Smiling, he returned to the sofa, sitting like a king.

"Good. Because let us get this straight: I am no mere product of abuse, not more than you are." Loki's gaze flashed, but Crane held it. "I'm the terror of Gotham. Not some misunderstood abuse victim with personal vendettas. I have gotten my revenges. Believe me, I have."

"Careful, Crane."

"I'd say the same to you, Asgardian."

"You wished to destroy me." Loki reached into his jacket's inner pocket and laid _The Psychoanalysis of Mr. World_ on the table.

"I wrote it because I wish to understand you."

"We had an understanding."

"I wished to know your past, and to..."

"Trust me? Ah. So for you to trust someone, you must psychoanalyze them." It made a twisted sort of sense. "I had to force your story from you, even after I told mine, remember?"

"I remember," Crane said.

"Good. But I think we're even now. You scratch my back, I promise not to break yours. Let us work towards a common goal without interference. But to make sure this doesn't repeat itself..." Loki lit a match, and held _The Psychoanalysis of Mr. World_ high. He brought them together. The book began to burn. "Like that, the problem is gone. Cleansed. Fire with fire. Isn't that so, Jonathan?" The remains of the fear toxin made Crane kneel. "Good boy."

Loki could see every emotion on Crane's face. Hate. Rage. Fear. The things that'd happened yesterday had increased his insight into Crane's mind. He could read him like an open book.

"By the way. What happened to your great grandmother? You never did tell me."

Crane's eyes of glass shattered and were replaced by walls of steel.

"I killed her, of course."

Loki extended a hand to help Crane rise. " _Good_."

.

.

A man stood in the penthouse of the towering building, talking on the phone. He was grinning and chuckling, agreeing with the transmitter. "Yes... How awesome! ...Yeah alright, I'll see you in a few hours... ...yeah, yeah, that restaurant's really good, got some cute waitresses too... See you!"

As soon as he clicked the phone shut, his façade fell.

He returned his attention to the window.

Gotham beat like a heart, its habitants dance to the rhythm. It was midday, and the city was on its busiest. Workers were counting the hours until they were home, and their bosses were counting money. Cars stood in endless queues, drivers tapping the dashboard and shouting at each other, repeating a sacred ritual. They were all blissfully ignorant.

Amongst the chaos resided a time bomb.

It made the man's skin crawl. He had to alert Thor. Had to.

Yet his limbs would not move. Exhaustion had dug its claws deep into his spine. Only half of his armour were removed, face full of black paint. The cup of tea, sugar jar and milk jug were untouched. His mouth tasted like cobber. Using the last of his strength, he stood up.

Alfred stood in front of him. If it was a common criminal, he'd simply pushed him aside (or preferably into a wall). But this was Alfred. So Bruce moved to the side. Alfred responded with blocking his path once again.

"A meal," he said, monotone, "and a good night's rest."

"Move, please."

"Is it Batman I'm talking to now, or is it Master Wayne? Because I do not think watching out for madmen in bat costumes is part of my contract."

"I need to alert the Asgardian, and get a more accurate report on the other's weaknesses."

"I see. And how do plan to do that?"

He searched the place in his armour where the alert button was supposed to be. "Alfred. Give it back."

The butler remained impassive. "Something nutritious, and eight hours sleep, Master Wayne, and if you wake up earlier I will get the tranquillising gun."

.

.

The atmosphere was lighter than before.

Crane sat in his chair, reading a book on philosophy, while Loki was making them coffee. They'd kept to business for a while now. The list Loki had made detailing the fear toxin's effects had been a tense subject, but it'd been important.

The product was finished. But they needed a dress rehearsal—only with a smaller setting, of course.

"We could attack a zoo."

"Animals are innocent, unlike humans."

"Would you call slaughtering beasts innocent?" Visions flew across Loki's sight. Blue skin, red sclera, and big muscled bodies designed to smother any enemy _. ("When I grow up, I'll kill each and every one of them, brother!")_ It took much not to shudder.

Crane just shrugged. "If a child was taught nothing but kill, would it be worthy of execution? The religious boon the Bible states that mortals are born into sin because of their ancestors' wrongs. Is this morally correct?" A sigh, and the sound of a book shutting. "Big questions that even the wisest have struggled with for centuries."

Questions circled around in Loki's head. Had Frost Giants evolved beyond what Asgardians believed? Were there more like Loki, abandoned because of their appearances, yet with abilities to become something else than a physical champion?

"Heard of Greek philosopher Plato's Cave? Let me summarize: There are those who live their entire life in the darkness of a cave. There are also those who exit it, first blended by light and only able to see shadows, but then discovering a new world. Upon returning to the darkness, they might be stoned by those who fear of what they do not understand."

Puzzle pieces came into place, creating a picture in Loki's head. Memories stirred in his heart, pushing doubt into the tiniest of cracks. But he had to be strong, and hang onto what he believed was, perhaps not right, but justified. Frost Giant or not, he was intelligent, and intelligent individuals don't give up their vengeance. Thor deserved it for his treachery and general idiocy, and Odin and Freya deserved to have their favourite—their only!—son reduced to a snivelling, sobbing mess for basing Loki's existence on a lie.

"Believe whatever you desire. When I say animals are innocent, it's not because I'm an animal rights activist. It's just that they're too simple in comparison to humans. You don't see a rabbit fear failure, for an example. That's called Atychiphobia, by the way."

"Ah."

"But back to the original topic... Yes, we need something big, like a zoo. A human zoo."

Loki went over to the kitchen side, looking through the fridge for milk. Loki noted their distinct lack of eggs, meat and everything fresh, and said, "You were right. We need to visit the supermarket soon."

Crane froze. "The supermarket," he whispered.

Loki caught on one second later. "We're going on a little shopping trip, aren't we, Scarecrow?"


	4. Shores of Oblivion

"Before you ask..."

It rained, hailed, snowed, whipping them in the face. Each time the sky absorbed some bad leftover liquids it promptly vomited it all out on Gotham, its personal dump.

"...then yes, the weather is always this bad."

Crane drew his coat tighter around him, burying the lower half of his head inside a wool scarf. The wind made his cheeks redden, and the contact lenses made his eyes more watery than usual.

Loki gave the slightest of nods, actually glad to have borrowed Miðgarðr clothing. The cold was nothing compared to the fields of Jotunheim, but months spent inside buildings left him more sensitive to the temperature.

The two men hurried through the back allies.

They cast long shadows upon the stone houses' walls, flickering in time with the old streetlamps. Cats avoided them. Dogs whimpered as they passed. Three men rose when spotting them, and at the _click!_ of a gun, backed away. Otherwise, Loki's unnerving atmosphere prevented a casual knifing.

The clock was 19:00. The perfect time. Too early for parties, too late for work. Cops were lazy at these hours, busying themselves with tax dodgers, and the usual domestic disputes (wives insisting he loved them, really). Things had been quieter after Harvey Dent's "heroic sacrifice". The media was still milking it. They claimed it the beginning of an everlasting peace time in which everybody held hands and sang _kumbaya_.

"Do you think he did it?"

"Who?"

"Batman."

"I'm assuming you're talking about the murder on district attorney Harvey Dent, assuming he _is_ dead and not hidden away somewhere. Hm. Batman had no qualms about gassing me, thus ruining my reputation, work and life. Yet... I don't know. He's obviously demented, beating criminals into pulps during night time. His rule being the only thing that separates him from those at Arkham. But I do not think he's yet fallen into that path."

Loki thought back. "How about the clown terrorist, could he be responsible? Joker, was it?"

Crane looked away at the mention. "He was captured at the time."

"He could've set it up."

"Maybe."

Loki frowned. "You seem reluctant. Don't you wish to find out? I thought you were fascinated by the unstable mind."

"Of course I am," Crane replied sharply, "but some things—like diseases, hidden in the earth—are best left alone. If by some miraculous chance you'd happen to run into him, well... I'd recommend running in the opposite direction."

"Quite like the splendid example you gave when meeting the Bat Man?"

If his pride had been wounded, Crane didn't show it. "I do what I have to survive. Setting examples have nothing to do with it."

They walked in silence, until coming to a clearing. More and more people filled the streets.

They were walking shadows.

Loki copied Crane's carefully constructed mask. Newly shaved and without glasses, Crane looked to be in his twenties. Loki's hair was half hidden and short enough to not attract attention. In his hand was the silver suitcase. Crane held onto suitcases too, bigger and heavier ones. Their robes, two black wool coats, demonstrated Crane's expensive taste. With a PhD in psychology, he had afforded such.

It wasn't gold he'd been after when engaging in criminal activity. It was knowledge.

Loki knew that curiosity. It had gotten him in trouble, too, with peers and parents and other well wishers who thought him frail for choosing a scroll over a sword. He even collected books, even if he didn't read them all.

At least they were his now.

( _"Books contain worlds, Loki,"_ Freya had said once, sitting at his bedside. _"That's why they're so heavy."_ )

Owning a book—a world—had seemed like such a grand thing for him then, barely a couple of centuries old.

The memories felt like they belonged to a different man.

"We're here," Crane said.

The mall was lit up with blinking neon lights, advertising for sales and weight loss pills, mostly. The mannequins in the windows were dressed at the height of fashion. Inside, entire families were shopping.

A child was shrieking as her blushing father dragged her out, crying "I want I want I want" A man with a phone yelled them to shut up, re-entering an argument with some called Christine about someone called Margret. Another child was running from her mother, heading for the toy store. "You know we can't afford it—" the tired looking mother tried to shout, but three men blocked her path, whistling and grabbing after her. She hurried away, and was called a whore.

"A human zoo," Loki said.

"And we haven't even entered yet," Crane said. "Do you remember the plan?"

Loki nodded.

The first thing that met him when entering those doors was _noise_. Repetitive content rang from the speakers on the walls, melodies and advertisements, or sometimes advertisement hidden within melodies. They were frequently interrupted by gibbering ladies. The noise created an itch inside his head.

Loki gazed at the speakers once more, made a mental note, and moved on.

They passed store after store. Most sold garments. A few cafés were squeezed in between the clothes stores, selling hot beverages. People went their first, clutching their cups, desperate to get some warmth inside.

It was odd, walking through what would soon be a battlefield.

(Or a graveyard, should Crane miscalculate the dosage.)

"You do not seem fond of humans," Crane noted.

"Fond?" Loki clicked his tongue. "No, I am not fond of worms wiggling around in their own excrements."

"In shit?" Crane heightened both brows.

Loki looked over the mall. Everywhere he looked were posters of SALE! and NEW! and phrases like 'your life isn't complete without this' and 'find happiness by buying this' used over and over. "Clothes, interior, phones... _Shit_. Things they don't need. Why, to find happiness? To find a meaning?" His lip curled.

They were walking close and whispering so anyone wouldn't hear, and an old timer mistook them for lovers and muttered queers under his breath.

Crane shrugged, undisturbed. "Scarcely any are born privileged; most needs to build their lives up from scratch. Obviously, they look for a meaning—"

"—an _illusion_ , Scarecrow."

"Many spend their entire lives wrapped in one. You should know all about that."

A darkness passed over Loki's face. "Of course I do. That is why I dislike them."

They did not speak to each other for the rest of the walk.

The only detour was one towards an abandoned exit in the far east of the building. Loki made it so the security camera momentarily experienced some technical difficulties. Looking very important, he stood before Crane while the latter stuck tape reading TEMPORARILY OUT OF USE and DO NOT ENTER all over it. In less than thirty seconds, they'd assured themselves a way out.

Upon arriving at the destination, Crane straightened, and Loki did the same. This was a crucial point in the plan. They stepped onto the escalator.

Ahead of them lay the control room. Its functions were primarily store management and surveillance. It laid in the centre of the building, like a heart. Though a waiting room separated from the true core. Loki saw its occupants through a glass window, consisting of a sleeping teenager and an elderly couple with nothing more to talk about. The old man occasionally glared at the dozing teen, blaming his generation for the age's faults. Behind the reception desk sat a young woman who polished her nails.

"Let me do the talking," Crane said.

The door slid open, revealing two men in expensive suits.

The receptionist got a streak of pink on the tip of her finger. "Don't slam the door, please. Have a seat and wait at your turn."

Crane went over to her in an impressive stride, and leant on the desk. She froze. His piercing blue eyes threatened to freeze her solid. "Listen, _dearie_ , me and my college did not travel all the way from Steel City to read magazines in a lousy waiting room. Contact your boss or this department will suffer, and your job along with it."

The girl was as pale as a ghost, nodded shakily made her way to the offices behind her.

"My turn," Loki decided. Crane stilled, and then nodded. It'd be a test.

From the crack in the door, they saw far better interior, furniture modern and made of steel. It contrasted the waiting room, with its spew coloured sofa and its cheap coffee table with old papers and older mug rings. It came as no surprise that the manager waggled out of his comfortable office; an obese man with a ducktail bear. "What is the problem?"

"Ah, you must be the manager. I am Mr. World."

Loki stepped forth, oozing off confidence.

"This is my colleague, Mr. Dread. We are here for scheduled inspection of your facility, especially concerning the aging air venting system. I trust you _did_ write our appointment down after we phoned you, Mrs. Wilkerson, and that the attitude of your receptionist was just the error of a new employee."

Red faced, he wiped sweat off his balding head. "Yes, um, Miss. Brunè is— uh, she's new and... Let me show you around."

"Are you not going to check our papers first, Mr. Wilkerson, as per regulations?"

"Yes, yes of course. I'm sorry gentlemen, hah, busy day, hahah, as you know."

They did not laugh with him.

Loki unclipped the expensive, aluminium suitcase and handed him a documents of enchanted papers. "I trust these are enough. Calling them for further confirmation would take even more time, which will go on the report. As you can see, both Mr. Dread and I have studied at the finest universities, specialising in these matters."

He could not, but nodded, nevertheless. "Uh yes. Let me lead you to the air vent system, then!"

"Yes. That _is_ what we came here for, after all."

The manager's shirt was wet with sweat, and he laid a stink path after him.

(Loki and Crane entered the heart, carrying an undetected virus.)

No one in the control room gave them a second look. They went on with their business, chatting idly, not sparing them a second glance.

Loki had a déjà vu moment reminding him of when he walked through the prison, disguised as a prison guard. This was the second time he dressed as something he loathed. He blended in so easily among these criminals, socially accepted only because they wore a suit and stayed on the right side of the law, publically. It was humiliating, almost. What was next? A king?

(It was only fair he'd be so good at stealing other people's identities after having his own destroyed.)

"I think we'd like to see the air vent at the roof, first," Loki said.

"Right away? But..." The scowls Loki and Crane gave him silenced him. He led them up some metal stairs. It took an eternity before he found the correct key. Upon opening the door, he was met by a ghastly wind that made him fall. He tumbled down like a bowling ball. Hopefully the fat lessened his fall.

"Everything alright?" Crane called.

He got a muffled "Yes" in response. The man was on the verge of crying.

"I think we'll manage from here," Loki said. "Go and tend to your wounds."

The manager cared more for himself than protocol and agreed.

Crane held the door open. The two lanky figures moved out on the snow covered roof. Their coats made them appear as blue dots in a white world.

The outside air vent greeted them in silence.

Crane bent down and unlocked the suitcases. Thick containers laid inside, insides dark greenish. With homemade yet impressive instruments, he connected them to the air vent.

"Have I complimented you on your plan already? Regardless, it is impressive. What secret halls move through an entire building? What could spread Fear Toxin, immediately?"

"This is where you come in, Loki."

Loki inhaled. Closed his eyes. It was as if electricity sizzled through him, making the hair at his arms stand out like antennas.

And in an instant, he was buried deep within the building's machinery.

Sound. He was inside the clicking, echoing tubes, like demon typewriters and mutilated machines within machines, clattering, clicking. What sounded like a nasty dissection filled his mind. But he didn't only hear, he _felt_ , guiding the toxin on its trip. The spell he'd laid over it guided them to the nearest living thing.

Loki's hand _curled_ and the wheels stopped spinning. Exit doors slammed shut, one by one. No escape. Smoky poison invaded mouths and nostrils. He felt the growing nervousness and the madness, brewing like a storm. Felt each sweat drop. Each increasing heartbeat. Each scream, building itself up. Some tore themselves from throats as Loki concentrated harder. Light bulbs exploded.

And so, with a little bit of fear and containment, the mall was transformed into a human zoo. Without control, humans become monsters. He was so deep within the machinery—

( _"I'll hunt the monsters down and will slay them all!"_ )

Loki was pulled out of the building like a maelstrom. He fell back. Blood dripped from his nose and onto the snow.

Crane stood over him. "Are you alright?" The impassive façade was not enough to veil the concern.

"I'm fine."

And Loki was, really, and took Crane's hand and allowed himself to be helped up. Crane handed him a handkerchief and he wiped away the blood.

Underneath their feet was a blooming battlefield. Crane held up one finger, translating that they'd wait one minute there on the snowy rooftop. He then gave Loki a burlap mask, and got his own.

It was a burlap sac infused with a gas mask, sewn together like a quilt. It'd been upgraded from the photo on the news. Two round filters hung on the sides. Its mouth had strings like thin sharp teeth. Bright blue jewels shone through the eyeholes.

Loki's, though...

"Why?"

"Keeps out the toxin," Crane answered.

"I'm aware of that. I'm talking of... _these_."

"Oh, _those_. Theatrics. Has a good effect on the crazies."

"Seems more like metaphors."

Crane smiled. The door, frequently opening and closing, made screaming audible.

"Ah, screaming. A way to convey fear. Silence, on the other hand, is a step in realizing one's true nature. Your nature isn't to fear, Loki. Your nature is to bring fear."

Loki stood still for a moment. "A gift," he then said, and with a flick of a hand, classical music began to play. It drowned the mortal fear with angel trumpets and demon trombones. Started slow and brewing like a like a storm. " **String Quartet No. 14 in C sharp minor op. 131. Beethoven.** **"** He licked his teeth. Something ancient rose within his chest, trapped behind his teeth. Something that'd fallen asleep all those months ago, waiting patiently for a new war.

"You asked me if I was fond of humans. As you heard, I am not. But you have your brilliant lights illuminating the world for the rest, geniuses lifting the entirety of your civilization. I believe if you attribute to society through culture or science, you deserve life. Hadn't greed so easily consumed intelligence, a civilization ruled by the wisest would be prosperous. By raking away weed, we'd have a Garden of Eden. Scientists, authors, musicians... I can appreciate some of your sentiments. I enjoy good wine, fine music..." a look towards the ground, "...and intelligent company." Another look—towards Crane, this time.

Chaos spilled out of Loki's mouth in the form of laughter like a gurgling creek.

They left the silver suitcase behind, lying in the snow.

.

.

An employee hid under his desk, trembling. His name was William Laake and he'd been working at the mall as a security guard for 18 months. He was an ordinary fellow living a comfortable life squeezed between church meetings and football clubs, with a wife and an infant son. Even if he'd lived in Gotham in a year, the most trouble he'd gotten into was a parking ticket.

Not like this.

Never anything like this.

Blood was painted the cubicle walls. A bright red smear, trailing down onto a great pool at the carpet. William's coworker Ali Fliss laid underneath it, unmoving. Someone had smashed his head in and thrown him into William's cubicle, shrieking as he ran away. Ali had convulsed violently, then become still. There was so much blood in the air that William could taste the metal.

Heavy footsteps echoed down the hall. They weren't panicked, so whoever were walking towards his cubicle weren't human—anything remotely human would've run.

He started praying.

Two shadows passed his cubicle. From the glimpse William caught, the air around them seemed to blur. He felt dizzy, heart threatening to blow up. Their sizes were impossible to tell, shifting like a vortex. Demons attempting to take the skin of humans and failing horribly.

And then one of the demons turned around.

William blinked.

 **Look, my child! If you don't do what I say, the demons will get hold of you!** When he opened them he was six again, and Daddy had left him at church while he was out drinking. Left him with Old Priest Carlos. The scenery had changed to the church cellar, and the priest was standing in front of him. **We'll cleanse you, don't worry. Chase the demons out!** Spit drooled down the priest's chin. His spindly fingers reached towards William. **Lie still now, or I'll tell your Father what a naughty boy you were!**

William screamed.

The shadow smiled. It held a finger to its lips. "Shh."

Its lips were stitched shut.

When it left, Carlos materialized completely, and William was left reenacting his worst memories for hours until the police found him, curled up and sobbing like a baby.

.

.

Gunshots. Marching. Flies. Bombs. Alarms. Screaming _._

_The battlefield. A world of dead decay (shit), despair (shit) and dead bodies (even more shit). His grainy surroundings was the truest definition of a shithole. Everything moved like a bad dream._

_The stink of war made the young soldier gag. He was far away from home with an uniform crusted with blood from its previous three owners. In his left hand was a torn letter signed_ _From Martha with his name nearly washed away, and in his right a rifle with his platoon number on it.  
_

_An enemy was near.  
_

_He sat in a pile of corpses with a gruesome smile that went from ear to ear. This laughing being represented malevolence, selfishness, and apathy; everything the soldier fought against. He lost himself (he lost reality) and charged, growling like a hungry beast. He wrapped his hands around the demon's throat. The demon laughed and laughed and laughed. The soldier squeezed harder, thumbs on the throat like they'd been taught to, never questioning._

_"Hah ha aaa—"_

**Crunch.**

The body fell back into the couch, lifeless. The grin no longer seemed benevolent. It was more like gritted teeth, accompanied by a grimace of pain and hysteria.

The soldier... no, no, he wasn't a soldier anymore, he was an old man. His hands was wrinkly. His thumbs too, buried deep within the monster's... no, the _teenager's_ throat, having just punctuated the pulse vein.

He was an old man standing in a mall's waiting room, waiting to file a complaint about a nasty security guard personally since they did not own a telephone.

His wife sat curled up in a corner like a scared deer, having just witnessed her husband of 68 murder a sleeping child in cold blood.

"Please don't be scared, Martha." The old man felt unreal and dethatched from himself. "Please don't be scared of me. _Please_."

"Get away from me you mo—monster."

Monster, monster, monster.

It came crashing down on the old man, then, the repressed emotions (are not memories only emotions in motion?) dawning with the force of a heart attack. Vietnamese ghost villages. Dead men, dead women, dead children, piled up. Something racing towards them immediately killed, only to find out that it'd been a small boy.

When the real demons entered, he was blabbering nonsense, having retreated to somewhere far within himself. The wife sat crying in a corner. The teenager was dead, two bloody holes in his throat.

.

.

Maria was a spindly thing, barely four years old, wearing an oversized rain coat and red boots. She had a tight tummy, hot and cold sensations, and dried tear tracks on her cheeks. She does not understand a lot of things.

Uncle Cy was hiding in the oasis like decoration's plants, located in the centre of the mall. She gave his arm one last tug. Uncle Cy whimpered.

What is fear to a child? The feeling of _I do not understand_ had raped her fragile sense of security.

It was hard to see anything because of a thick greenish mist.

Everywhere there was noise and smell. Bad smell. Toilet smell. And someone had thrown up everywhere and fallen asleep. When her stuffed animals had become broken, white dots had leaked out over her bedroom. The adults, on the other hand, leaked red. Some laid in pools of it, face smashed like a porcelain doll's.

People were running. Crying. Yelling. Screaming. The adults acted like the animals on television, growling and attacking each other. First it'd been funny, if not a bit unnerving. It became very scary when some fell and didn't get up.

(The destruction of adults forces children to become little adults instead.)

She rose. Momma had to be here somewhere. Slowly, she wobbled through the mall.

The nice man at the bakery had two pens in his forehead, whispering "I see her... oh god, I see her..." Two women cuddle and kiss with demented abandon amid the tea and cakes, an unmoving figure hunched over the nearby table. Another hang in a ceiling lamp.

"Einstein was wrong," someone yelled, "I'm the speed of light cracking through shivery atoms and god the sky whirls and withers like a melting rainbow!"

"Where is God when you need him the most? I ate God and spit out the remains and it created Earth."

"Room 101, room 101!"

"Make him stop, Dad! It hurts! Please, Dad, make him _stop!"_

"Ungh uh ha ee na?"

"It's rotting _it's rotting it's rotting—"_

As she was little, this made very little sense to Mary. There was a gradual sense of discomfort—but not enough to kill the instinct to find Momma. She bit the inside of her lip not to cry again.

The tiny thing in an oversized jacket wobbled past the two shadows.

Looking for Momma.

.

.

They'd succeeded.

They were kings. Kings of the mad! Hah!

Loki and Crane looked over their creation, standing on the second floor. A corpse hung over a hand rail. Disgusted, Loki pushed it off. _Thud!_ The face—now visible—was smeared with lipstick. Or blood. Hard to tell.

Beneath them a great fog resided. Most of the lights had gone out thanks to Loki's surges of power. Some of them continued bursting. The space bellow was dimly illuminated. One could make out hordes of people, acting like inmates in an asylum. Shit smeared walls. Wails of the damned. A feast of fools. Currently, a collection of lunatics were destroying a television store.

Similarly to Loki, Crane's own madness had taken over. He scribbled fanatically into his notebook, drinking in the details of the manslaughter. A youth had gotten his hands on a sledgehammer. The results were vile and blood soaked. The most fascinating things occurred when people engaged in hand to hand combat though, giving into their deepest desires and tearing the throats out of their spouses.

String Quartet No. 14still played in the background.

Crane's pupils were tiny beneath the mask. "More... violence than I believed."

"That's alright," Loki whispered. He had the air of a docile predator. "I like violence..." The madman trapped in his lungs laughed manically.

Luckily, Crane eventually snapped out of it enough to think rationally. "We need to _shop_."

Loki gave him a blank stare, like he couldn't recognize Crane at all.

Crane sighed, and raised a hand towards Loki.

Loki snatched it in an instant and squeezed Crane's fingers with his own. The result could be anything; sudden laughter or broken fingers. The Asgardian looked like he wasn't quite sure himself.

"Tch." Crane used the other to meddle with the lower parts of Loki's burlap mask. _Click!_ Loki fell to his knees, gasping for oxygen free of poison. Crane stood above him, impassive. "I thought your magic made you immune to the toxin, but installed an old gas mask in it just in case."

"Thank you," Loki said, slowly rising. The blankness disappeared.

"Don't stress it. Let's go."

They took the elevator down to the first floor, inching closer to the slaughter. The door opened. The young man with the sledgehammer headed straight for them, stopped dead in his tracks, and ran away screaming.

"Did you do that?" Crane asked.

"I'm not wholly certain. It might've been my magic's close contact with the toxin, or my magic itself." He wanted a distance between himself and the mad, and so, there was.

The pair moved towards the nearest grocery store. People avoided them, busying themselves with attacking one another. An occasional loon sprang from the smoke fog, only to run away howling, claiming god was in man or some other absurdity.

A little girl dressed in red passed them, unaffected. Crane smirked but left her alone.

The grocery store was empty, apart from an unconscious body drenched in milk. The food was untouched save for everything yellow (chips packages, fruit, etc.), which it appeared someone with Xanthophobia had thrashed. Crane had brought a small list and started finding the most necessary items, carrying the food in ecological bags ironically enough.

Loki gazed lazily at the store's security camera. "You specifically asked me not to meddle with the surveillance equipment, despite my previous practise. Do you want them to see?"

"For once, yes." Crane was always so composed. He was madness trapped in diamond foil, crystal clear outside, and turmoil inside. Sometimes it leaked out of his eyes and mouth. "I'm sick of shadows."

For a moment, they both glanced up at the camera, and smiled.

He moved towards the liquor section. It operated with the store within store model, with separate staff and cashiers. After a minute, he had an "Aha!" moment and held up a bottle of fine wine. Hard work equals celebration. Despite returning Crane's smile, Loki thought, _'Your mortals forgive too easily.'_

Loki looked at his clock. Twenty minutes 'till nine.

They were finished here.

None of these people would ever be exactly the same. Even if their pitiful minds managed to repress it, they'd wake up in the middle of the night from crazed fever dreams.

And the best thing?

This was just the rehearsal of the bigger performance.

Loki and Crane headed for their chosen exit. It was untouched. Even lunatics follow some rules. Police and onlookers had gathered at the other exits, attempting to barge in. Loki heard battle cries from hostile madmen. The upcoming fight wasn't going to be nice.

Right before they disappeared a pale girl grabbed Loki's arm. "I just want to say I admire your work," she hurried to say.

(Admiration is not an understanding.)

Loki's forehead ceased up.

"Loki, we need to go. Now."

Crane held the door open for Loki, scanning the area. Nobody was following them. The girl simply stood there, unblinking, even as the door slammed shut.

"What was that?" Loki asked when they were out in the back allies, breathless. It was dark. Dark _er_. The symphony of sirens dulling, drowned by the raging weather.

"Hmmm? Oh, the girl? A fan." Crane made quotation marks in the air. "Shallow people. Interested in the unstable mind. Some wants to fix you and others want to serve you in order to make themselves feel important. There are millions of them."

"Millions," Loki echoed. Dark thoughts bloomed in his mind. He had another psychotic episode, and started to laugh again.

.

.

Tony Stark sat in the Wayne suite, concentrating.

A drop of sweat ran down his forehead. He blinked, annoyed, and wiped it away. Trembling, he reached forth a hand. There was a motion, singular.

The figure opposite him smiled. He reached forward as well.

"Check mate," Bruce Wayne said.

Stark crossed his arms like a sulking child. He fell further into the 10 000$ designer couch. Alfred muttered words of encouragement as he placed a tray with champagne (or rather, ginger ale for Bruce) on the table. With alcohol in his blood, conversation went smoothly between the two gentlemen despite Bruce's victory in chess. They did not discussed hotels and women and adventures from when they were young. Nothing heavier.

Stark laughed and smiled and had a good time but—

"...Yeah, life can be too hard sometimes," Bruce Wayne, billionaire playboy, said.

—something was _missing_.

There was a hole in Stark's chest. A need to correct Wayne arose uninvited. There was nothing wrong with the man. Sure, Wayne was egoistic and arrogant, but not evil. In Stark's eyes he was a just a boy trying to fill the hole of his parents had left with pretty cars and prettier ladies. Talking of such made Stark feel empty.

His stomach churned.

If he'd never become Ironman, would he still...?

His Avengers alarm rang. He took it up, immediately serious. SHIELD summoned him to a meeting, importance grade four. "Duty's calling. I need to go."

Bruce, who'd looked startled for a moment, smiled. He looked a bit drunk. "Superhero stuff? Cool, buddy. Kick some villain ass for me!"

"Yeah, Bruce," Stark mumbled, not quite managing to fake happiness, "I'll kick some villain ass for you." The child in him was missing. He was an adult now, grown, desperately clawing at immaturity. It gave him nothing except nostalgia, perhaps. He got up.

"Good seeing you again, Tony," Bruce said, grinning.

"You too, Bruce."

Stark left.

He did not see how Bruce's grin fell, and how Batman shredded the mask of Bruce Wayne—the child that'd died years ago in a dirty back alley together with his parents.

.

.

Glasses of wine clinked together.

"For success," Crane said, and took a sip.

"For success," Loki echoed.

They sat in the apartment, discussing the day's events.

"...I got a wine like this from one of my students, a while back." Crane said in the midst of strategy planning. "It'sFrench, I believe."

"Students?"

Crane took another sip. "I was a university teacher for a short time. Fired for unorthodox," he spat the word, "teaching methods. My class graduated with top marks. Regardless, they cast me out. Jealousy, I believe."

"Envy can be dangerous."

"It was. At least for them, afterwards." Crane smiled a terrible smile. "As you know, I later enrolled in Arkham Asylum as head psychiatrist. Long story short, more unorthodox methods—even if my discoveries were revolutionary—and I ended up a criminal. How about you? Any dark history I need to know of?"

"Hm. Question is where to start and what to tell. I do not want to, eheh, scare you with the descriptions."

"I'm not scared of anything, Loki."

"What about crows and bats?"

The good doctor stiffened. "Products of Batman's revenge." Crane's face began to darken, like a storm about to unleash thunder, not like Thor, no, icier anger than that. "I was completely sane before the wretched Bat ruined everything. My research, my experiments, my results—everything I'd worked so hard for." Loki decided not to share that he knew about great grandmother Crane, in case the man decided to experiment with memory altering chemicals on him. "Only the weak-minded fear. And, of course, those under my Fear Gas. Every mind becomes weak, then."

"Whatever you say doctor." Loki paused, allowing his mind to take in images of Asgard. "I remember... a shadow. I remember feeling unworthy, out of place, unwanted. No matter what I did I was always on second place."

Crane could pity him on that area. He himself had been a victim for bullies in his teenage years, with feminine features and a skinny figure. Being occasionally starved by his great grandmother didn't help the latter part.

"I choose not to see first. I ignored the whispers, even if I knew inside that something was terribly wrong. Though with the words of a dying Jötunn," _Father_ didn't feel right, "my eyes were forced open. One cannot ignore an idea, and although I begged for it to be false, the need to clarify overwhelmed me. Breaking through that last barrier, I transformed into my true form."

"Which is...?"

"Creatures in Jotunheim. Collected in small packs under a king Jötunn, occasionally coming together to slaughter each other. Hard to believe it was my true heritage."

Crane nodded curtly, sipping from his glass. "Continue."

"My entire life had been nothing but a lie, all those centuries spent with those I dared calling family, and one I dared call br—" Pain appeared on Loki's features until hatred swallowed it all. "I was a stranger, an abomination, an outsider from the start. Even when I tried to prove myself worthy as an Odinson and destroy the road the Jotunheim, the world of my race, the Thunder God sent me into an abyss. For seconds and hours, weeks and years, I travelled through vast universes. I happened to come over the Chitauri. You know the rest. I never meant to rule this world! Midgard is beneath me. And the Chitauri would've liked a bigger share than first suggested, I could tell. All I desired was to be in the spotlight for some time. That and see Thor's favourite world crushed to debris. I will have my revenge."

"A worthy goal."

" _I swear it_."

One might've mistaken Loki for a snake, or a sorcerer pronouncing a deadly vow. Crane didn't look so dismissive after that. The force Loki put behind those words caused a chain reaction. His magic burst inwards. He clutched his throat, then his arm, wincing.

"It's the wound, isn't it?" Crane said quietly.

"I changed bandages when we first came here. ...Not good, but I have had worse. I am letting it breathe, for now."

"Let me see."

"I'd rather not." The first time, he'd been as weak as a kitten. He'd just broken out of jail, travelled between two major cities, and taken to the streets for a couple of hours.

"Please."

Wary, Loki unbuttoned his shirt.

"If we keep this up we might run out of band aids," Crane said, standing up and getting a medic bag. When he returned, Loki's entire arm was stirring again. The wound had grown, now stretching from his neck to his elbow. The skin had blackened, like a hard outer shell. The runes gleamed red. "Jesus Christ. Do you think you can do this much longer?"

Loki instantly regretted complying. "Of course I can," he hissed through his teeth. "And if I don't, it doesn't matter. I will not be the one doing the hard work."

Crane frowned. "What?"

Loki smiled inhumanly wide. It threatened to snap his cheeks. "I have fans," he said eerily.

"Fans?"

"I did some searching on the computer. There are entire sites entitled to me, Scarecrow. They worship me like a god. Like you stated, they are very willing to give themselves to me. It's _so_ fascinating. I do not always burn bridges behind me. I still remember the people I blackmailed."

The freckled, deaf girl. Check.

The Friday Guard who'd just become a parent. Check.

Two lovely people that could make a huge difference in the upcoming war.

"I will write her an email," he said dreamily. The Fear Toxin remained in his system, making him unstable. "She will comply. Why, she's even the leader of an organization dedicated to loving me."

"An organization," Crane repeated.

"And he, he is another pawn. He'll help me with something _special_."

Loki fished a phone up out of nowhere and threw it over to Crane. A BlackBerry? "I have a functioning phone, I assure you."

"It has a map over the prison's insides."

"Ah, I see... But we're not in the prison, are we?"

"I wasn't aware," Loki muttered sarcastically, but smiled again shortly after. "No, but I have a small an idea. A surprise. Listen closely, Crane..."

.

.

"...I'm glad you could all come here so fast," Agent Coulson said. They stood in the control room in the ship, in front of several huge screens. Agents everywhere were clicking and scanning, working on localizing the threat. Loki.

It made Thor's head ache. Stark, for once, did not comment on his expression. He seemed lost in thought. Captain America wanted to be everywhere but here, and exchanged a few words with Black Widow and Hawkeye. Dr. Banner had declined the offer, preferring to stay in the base (not that he wanted that either—but SHIELD wanted to keep him close, in case Loki planned something akin to last time).

"You see, I've found the perfect plan." Agent Coulson paused dramatically, and double clicked the red x. Nothing happened. "Uh, this usually works."

Just then, the picture on every SHIELD computer on the platform froze. Small downloading bars appeared, finishing before anyone could react. Then a familiar mask appeared on every screen.

"Avengers," the Batman greeted in his usual growl, making it impossible to interpret his mood. "I have information."

Thor stood up. "On Loki? Is he well? Where—"

"How did you hack in?" an agent demanded, tapping away at keyboards. She tried in vain to shut Batman out of the system and simultaneously track him down.

He ignored her. The screens jarred and a video started playing.

Two men in an area filled with smoke. A convenience store? It zoomed in. They were wearing masks.

Loki.

Thor squinted. What he saw made his mouth dry. He could not remember why it shocked him to the core of his being—was it a memory, perhaps? Or a vision made by a seer, in those nights of their boyhood explorations? Perhaps it was a simply a story of what happened to noisy wee lads.

The mask's mouth was sewn shut.

Suddenly Batman wasn't the problem.

"Where?" Captain America demanded.

"A mall, located south of the Narrows. Midtown Mall. Popular with middleclass citizens. Loki and Crane infiltrated it 20:30 today, using the air vent system to release smoke into the entire building. Had barricaded all doors. Police took an hour to get it up, and was attacked by people under the influence of Fear Toxin. 86 people dead. Countless more wounded, or insane, or both."

Pictures popped up on the screen, some more grotesque than others. The worst was of a little girl, oh god... Captain America closed his eyes for a moment. Humans were capable of such destruction when mad.

"They're _experimenting_. This won't be the end of it. This was dress rehearsal, in a smaller format."

Stark did not call him paranoid, not again.

Black Widow stepped forward. "What was the other's name?"

"Jonathan Crane."

"Thank you. That's all we need to know. If we have to turn every table in this godforsaken city we will find Loki and render him harmless. I do not care what happens to his little partner."

"No," Batman growled—really, really _growled_. "I want Scarecrow alive."

"What, afraid of a little more blood on your hands, Batman?"

An agent who'd tried locating Batman nearly flew off his chair as his computer exploded.

"Alive," Batman repeated. "And well. I'll contact _you_."

.

.

Hotmail.

 _Click_.

New mail.

 _Click_.

Sender: ...  
Title: ...

Nothing, essentially.

Angelica was used to nothing. There was nothing inside her head, mostly. No noise. No vibrations in the air with frequencies within a human's range of hearing. She was deaf, after all.

One couldn't miss what one had never had.

She'd never had a home either. This was her lousy excuse—a small lousy apartment, painted purple by the previous owner, stripped for personality and space. It was located in a cheap district in New York. The couple above always screwed, and the couple bellow always partied.

She almost moved the new email into the spam folder, but for some reason, did not. She clicked on it and read.

An hour later, after several minutes of breathing exercises (her therapist insisted) and visual confirmations, she realized that this was no joke. The details of the email... Incredible. It could be no other. And he needed her help! Her skin started pricking with excitement.

But what if it was a trap?

Trying to remain calm, Angelica texted the number in the email. A question mark. She felt stupid, but didn't know what else to write. She held her breath while waiting. It seemed like a century passed, before the new message popped in. There were no words. Just a photo.

A pale, thin hand holding an origami bird.

Her heart nearly stopped.

Immediately, she phoned another number.

Speaking was hard. She hadn't gotten proper tutorage until high school, when introduced to lip reading and residual hearing through hand placement on throat, mouth and nose. Vibrations. Movements.

"He's c—coming here," she stammered. "L—Loki is coming here!"

In another hour, the whole community knew it. The mass production of Fear Toxin was already begun.


	5. In Enemy Hands

Crane went over the conversation in his head.

_("Let me get this straight. You want me to infiltrate the top security SHIELD base by allowing myself to get captured by a gang of superheroes that fought an entire alien race?")_

It rained great big tears in the streets of Gotham. The storm still raged and ripped in his oversized raincoat. It rendered him a walking copy of the pavement—black, wet and shiny. A lone cab disrupted his line of thinking as it raced past, splashing water all over him. At that exact moment, he recalled Loki's sarcastic reply.

_("Of course. Didn't I just say so?")_

There'd been no arguing with the Asgardian.

His phone beeped. It was a text message from a secret number. It read ' _Almost there, Scaredy Cat.'_

Crane gritted his teeth at the nickname. Loki had claimed SHIELD surveyed and checked all forms of communication and using Scarecrow or Jonathan Crane would've gotten SHIELD's notice. ' _Prick_.' There was no poison in Loki's teasing though, or Crane would've gassed him.

The rain didn't seem to be lessening. Whoever caused it must've been miserable.

On his way there he saw a young girl. Her hair was dyed pink and green and she was petting a small mongrel, with a piece of string instead of a proper leash. Crane handed her a dollar. She looked at it, then him, and smiled.

Finally, he reached the destination.

Crane desperately hoped this would work. He fastened the hoodie, inhaling. He texted Loki. _Begin._

A second later, music started playing from every nearby building. Crane rolled his eyes. Loki did have a taste for the dramatic.

Crane stood entirely still on the chosen spot, and waited.

.

.

Yes. He _did_ have a taste for the dramatic, Loki thought, sitting in Crane's apartment and watching the exchange from a nearby security camera. Especially after becoming a master hacker. Science, like magic, did not tell one what to do with it. It simply waited for you to use it.

Security cameras had become his new eyes.

Music was his words, presenting his intentions perfectly. Nothing fit destruction better than fine tunes. And what told his intentions better than Beethoven's glorious ninth? Again, it bubbled up his throat and spilled out from his mouth. Oh bliss, heavenly bliss. Loki fell back and laughed. He laughed so hard he almost couldn't click the send button on the PC, beginning phrase two in operation 02: the capture.

Afterwards, he got his things, did a few more arrangements, and went out to meet his own fate.

.

.

SHIELD headquarters' alarms flashed red.

On every screen, there was an endless blur of

01000011 01001111 01001101 01000101 00100000 01000011 01000001 01010100 01000011 01001000 00100000 01001101 01000101 01000011 01001111 01001101 01000101 00100000 01000011 01000001 01010100 01000011 01001000 00100000 01001101 01000101 01000011 01001111 01001101 01000101 00100000 01000011 01000001 01010100 01000011 01001000 00100000 01001101 01000101 01000011 01001111 01001101 01000101 00100000 01000011 01000001 01010100 01000011 01001000 00100000 01001101 01000101

"Decode it," Nick Fury yelled. Despite the volume, he was dreadfully calm. "Decode it now."

The agent clicked something. In a moment, the binary codes transformed into text.

COME CATCH ME, it read.

(COME CATCH ME COME CATCH ME COME CATCH ME COME CATCH ME COME CATCH ME COME CATCH ME COME CATCH ME COME CATCH ME COME CATCH ME COME CATCH ME COME CATCH ME COME CATCH ME COME CATCH ME COME CATCH ME COME CATCH ME COME CATCH ME COME CATCH ME COME CATCH ME COME CATCH ME—)

An address then appeared on the screen.

"Sir," an agent said lowly, "I believe it's a trap."

"Of course it's a trap." Nick Fury had a moment of déjà vu; an image of Loki, his smile threatening to snap his head apart, finding secrets wherever he looked. Fury had met many men in his line of work and had learned to distinguish one criminal from another. Loki was the predictably unpredictable sort. He would release an atom bomb just for shits and giggles.

"Avengers," Nick Fury said, "assemble."

.

.

One month.

One month of complete and utter silence.

Bruce Wayne smiled (if not a little strained) at the arriving guests at his ongoing penthouse party, playboy bunnies and corrupt politicians alike. Inside, deep inside, Batman gnashed his teeth, sliding them over each other again and again and again until they were flat and smooth. Bruce did not smile with teeth.

When the guests were drunk enough, he retreated to the shadows. Alfred watched him go, eyes like that of an old statue. Bruce felt a crawling sensation running up his spine, like a child caught stealing from the cookie jar. _'Phantom pains,'_ Batman thought. _'Bruce is dead. He has been dead for twenty-five years.'_

He reached the isolated bathroom down the hall. On the walls hang multiple mirrors. It'd ward off a potential backstabbing. Everything smelled sterile.

Batman snarled, salvia dripping down his clean shaved chin. His breath smelled like ginger ale and shrimp. It was quickly drowned with three pills and water, some of it used on his face to awaken him properly. The knowledge of villains free in his city (his bones) gnawed at him.

"Where?" he growled, "Where?!"

The reflections of his twisted face gave no answer.

One month. 31 days. 744 hours. 44 640 minutes. 2 678 400 seconds.

Of nothing.

His head hurt from the meaningless math.

He returned to the party, smile gone. "I have a headache, sorry," he replied to the ones who asked him to dance. Batman was boiling beneath the façade, and wasn't sure how long he could contain himself. In the hall, he leant against the wall, breathing heavily.

"Master Wayne."

Batman turned around, expression warlike.

Alfred stood there. He bent forward, whispering, "Please calm yourself." There was ageless hostility there. Alfred served the Waynes. Not _this_. Never this.

"Tonight," said the thing in Bruce's skin. "It's starting... _tonight_."

As called, an alarm beeped; the alarm signalizing that something had gone wrong at SHIELD. "Scarecrow. Loki. _Mine_." He—it?—did not allow the butler to interrupt, disappearing towards the exit.

Alfred sighed like a soldier who'd seen too much, and went to clean the silverware and stop Mr. Golumbovsky from emptying his bladder in the pot plant.

.

.

Captain America. Ironman. Thor. Black Widow. Hawkeye.

These were the Avengers Nick Fury had chosen for the task of find Loki, render him harmless and bring him back alive. "Or dead," Fury had muttered solely in the hearing range of Hawkeye and Black Widow.

They stood in front of the entrance of the worst slum area in the Narrows. Its allies were sewer gutters, jammed in between dilapidated buildings with windows nailed shut. Barely any of the apartments had electricity. The shadows were drinking or fighting. Someone slammed a bottle in someone's head and the lights went out. In front of the entrance laid a deserted park; what'd been a playground, once.

The buildings on the other side of the road were staring down at them, daring them to enter. They felt the claws of delirium pull. Beethoven echoed from the buildings, played in reverse as soon as they'd stepped across the street. It did not lessen the eerie mood. This was an area of poverty, crime, malnutrition and disease. The playground laid in utter darkness.

_It was the appalling smell that hit them first: a cloying mix of decomposing refuse, sweat, and the ammonia smell of urine. When it rained heavily (like now), the sluggish water would flood low apartment floors with dead vermin and trash._

Captain America wrinkled his nose. The stench made him remember an episode during his stay in New York. He'd saved a starved alcoholic, only to recognize him as a war veteran depicted in numerous history books. Steve Rodgers was a simple guy, loyal to his family, his flag and his god. He'd commanded why, how, and _no_. Think of your family. Think of your country. Think of God. The war veteran had laughed, surprisingly sober, and said, " _Not all soldiers are moulded from men, y'know. Some are just born. Toddling over corpses, clutching their rifle like a mommy, bare rumps turned upwards for the world to fuck."_

It'd made the cracks within Steve grow, like roots.

Captain America shook his head, retuning to the present. He blamed the sudden memory on the Narrow Poisoning; the media's name on Jonathan Crane's first assault. Maybe its effects lingered. _'This place is abandoned by God,'_ he thought. A decaying battlefield; a second Hell. It made bad memories resurface and good ones wither.

Thor touched the pavement. "This is a bad place," he said gravely. "There is disease here. Rot, beneath the surface. This whole city is ill, and has been for a very long time. It was founded on corruption." He'd never had the curse—it could be nothing less—of magic, and could not feel Old Magic. Yet even he felt Gotham latch into his soul. "I think this," he gestured towards the slums, "is the core of the city. The heart. Rotting."

"Damn place is giving me the creeps, too, Thor. You don't see me getting all poetic over it," Tony joked, using humour as a shield while confronting his conscience. He'd spent weeks putting on the Ritz while these people drowned in their own filth.

"Quiet," Black Widow ordered. She'd been pulled out from a mission in Serbia because of this. She knew Fury would've preferred her to stay out. But Loki was hers to capture, hers to maim, hers to kill. He'd hurt Hawkeye. Nobody hurt Hawkeye, not without paying for it, preferably with their _head_.

Tonight she was no shadow. She was fire, deadly and sizzling, hair blood red in the streetlight.

No one could tell what was going on inside Hawkeye's head.

They scanned the playground, though the streetlight provided little light. There hang a couple of unsafe swings from an old willow. One of them had fallen down. A hangman's rope hung from another branch _._ Ironman remembered that a man committed suicide here a couple of weeks ago. The slide was busted in the middle, sharp metal stretching upwards. Its top had a clown head, violated by bored teens. Perfectly hideous.

"Guys," Stark tried weakly.

"I don't think there's anything here," Hawkeye said tensely.

"Uh, guys?"

"Nor do I." Thor sounded half relieved, half disappointed. The Avengers were about to part, each facing opposite directions. Stark still tried to get their attention.

"Guys? _Guys_."

(Three.)

"What?" Black Widow hissed.

(Two.)

"I think there's someone standing in the playground."

( _One_.)

The music disappeared.

It was replaced by—

...

...

...

 _screaming_.

The playground exploded with lights, streetlamps exploding right after a split second of use. It left the Avengers half blind and half deaf. Some of them were recalling events much like it, standing on a battlefield full of panic and desperation.

It took them a moment to recover.

When they did, the dark figure on the playground became startlingly clear. He held his arms out like directing an orchestra. When his arms fell, the screaming ceased.

The head tilted to the side. He wore a black cloak, but his smile was startlingly clear, sewn shut with steel wire. His eyes were two black holes.

 _'A mask,'_ Captain America thought. _'He's wearing a mask.'_ "Loki," he mumbled. "There's no mistaking it."

An arrow flew through the air, landing near the figure.

Hawkeye stood with his bow out. He never missed. But every inch of his body was trembling. The darkness he'd borne for so long oozed out of his pores.

The figure made a _come catch me_ gesture with his hand, and turned on the heel and ran straight for the slum.

Without thinking, the Avengers followed. Hawkeye and Ironman were in the front. Thor fell behind as if he didn't wish to catch his brother. They followed through deserted buildings and crooked allies, eventually losing one another while chasing their own shadows. Black Widow disappeared first.

There was thrash, everywhere. Old rags hang from clotheslines. The walls were miscoloured. Windows and doors were either nailed shut or wide open. A scrawny, shady type wandered past. Hawkeye nearly proceeded to beat the living shit out of him, prevented by the firm hand of Captain America. "C'mon Barton," he mumbled, remembering war, "you're better than this. Focus."

Loki's fingerprints had branded themselves into Hawkeye's mind. Sometimes it felt like he pulled the strings again, whispering into Hawkeye's ears. He hated himself almost as much as he hated Loki. "He's near," was all Hawkeye said. Captain America nodded, face shrewd.

Ironman saw the exchange, scrutinizing Hawkeye as he flew by. It'd started raining again. Ironman blamed Thor. He surprised a couple making love and flew a little faster—he didn't want to interrupt the rare good times these habitants had.

Thor was smashing his way through wooden walls. "Little brother," he yelled, "come forth." They'd sometimes played hide and seek as children. Like always, Thor would grow bored of the game, and give up after an hour. One time, Loki had been gone for two weeks. It'd been a thrall who found Loki, hiding in a root cellar, quiet as a mouse and very, very hungry. Unlike Thor, who'd bawl and shriek until he got his will, Loki would press his lips together until they blued. He'd thought silence was a form of protest. It wasn't. "Loki!" Thor called, and reduced another wall to rubble. "Please, I am tired of games!"

He imagined the sharp retort. _And I am tired of you, brother._

"I know," he muttered, head hanging. "But..." Guilt became blind rage and at once, he'd smashed himself to the other side.

There he stood.

He wasn't facing them. Instead he'd turned to the sky, looking upwards, like stars were telling him something. The cowl made his head unnaturally large.

"Loki...?"

"Shh, big guy." Black Widow hung from a building. "Don't to anything rash." Thor did not like spiders. They killed beautiful things and packed them into sticky masses. If she'd had fangs, they'd dripped with venom. She smoothly pirouetted down onto the ground, smirk gone. "This is too easy. Must be a trap."

"We'll attack on three," Captain America said, who'd also been watching the stargazer for a while. "One..."

Six arrows dashed through the air. Five of six were destroyed by small concentrated blasts from Ironman, though one continued. The movements made it unsteady and so it hit Loki's upper arm instead of his heart. Hawkeye charged at once, unflinching as the Avengers followed to stop him. Black Widow stared.

He collided with Loki, jumping atop of him and tearing at his mask. "Your face. Let me see your face." It wouldn't come off. _"Let me see_ _your goddamn face_!" Hawkeye was confronting his fear. He wasn't angry—he was terrified.

Thor tore him off, astounded at the mortal's desperation.

Hawkeye did not get up. Instead he laid there, spitting blood. "This air," he complained, clutching his head. "Can't breathe in this damn air."

"I think this place contains some of that Fear Gas," Black Widow said. "We can't stay here much longer."

The crumbled figure's cowl was in shreds. The mask under was a mix of hessian, metal and rigid breathing tubes. The sewn shut mouth looked like the gap of some deepwater monster fish. Thor attempted a removal. Hawkeye was right. The mask wouldn't bulge. Thor searched for an end, only to discover that it had none.

It'd been sewn into his neck. Black rope—thick like Thor's thumbs—stuck in and out of his neck and the mask, like burned maggots. The skin around them was red and irritated, but not infected. Was it Thor's imagination, or did the pieces of rope writhe?

The tiny pupils in the mask holes slowly slid over to Thor.

He stepped back, horrified.

"Magic," he said finally. "I cannot remove it."

"We don't know for sure who's under there," Black Widow said. "It might be a civilian unwillingly partaking in one of Loki's sick pranks."

"So what?" Captain America demanded. "We can't leave him here!"

A small group of habitants had gathered to watch the exchange. Five Avengers standing over the body of a masked lunatic wouldn't look good in the papers. A girl held up their phone to take a photo, planning on selling it to some news channel and fake her involvement as a victim in search for donations from soft hearted retirees.

In the next moment, it landed in a dumpster. Ironman ruined her plans.

"We need to go. Now." Bewilderment flashed across Black Widow's face. Hawkeye was closing in on a mental breakdown and more and more people flocked to the crime scene. Was there a bomb sewn into the masked person's belly? She regarded Thor. Would he go into full battle mode if SHIELD didn't take in his maybe-brother? That'd be harder to explain. If Gotham's media got their way, they'd manufacture the truth so all Asgardians became warmongering madmen. "Take the body into the ship."

When they discovered who it was, it was too late.

In the back of the ship, Thor held the cold hands of—what he believed to be—his little brother. "I'm sorry," he muttered again and again. All he could see was the brother he'd failed during the entirety of his childhood. He looked so small on the pale blue plastic mattress, dirt smudged arms and feet bound with titanium handcuffs.

The rest of their Avengers held their distance. They knew that Thor's guilt destroyed his logical thinking. So they stayed near Black Widow, who piloted the ship, course set for the base in New York. Her shoulders were tense. Some of it eased out when they left the repulsive, polluted city. Barton's headache finally lessened.

Midflight, the masked body started convulsing. Thor went into shock. He thought he was watching Loki die.

The rope pieces started wiggling and writhing again, as if attempting to get out. To. Get. _Out_.

( _"I need to get out."_ That was what Loki had muttered, walking in circles in his tiny confinement in the prison. Thor had watched on security cameras, watching his lips move. _"I need to. Get. Out."_ )

Yes, they were maggots, withering, shrieking and smoking upon contact with the floor. The other Avengers came running. It smelled like sulphur and rotting meat. They watched the mask which had been infused with his flesh fall apart, like a replica made of ash. It was like it'd never existed at all. Captain America resisted the urge to cross himself, like his grandmother when confronted with gruesome truth.

Jonathan Crane looked at them and smiled.

The course was set for SHIELD headquarters in New York.

There was no going back.

.

.

Batman saw the SHIELD ship CX301 fly into the blood red sunrise. The second it left, he knew something was wrong. He felt it in his gut.

The man sitting on a swing in the playground whistled Beethoven. Ninth symphony, second movement. No mortal man could produce such a variety with their mouth. When six, Bruce Wayne had visited a musical museum. He recalled his fear upon seeing a picture of a scowling Beethoven.

That was what hit him: the mental picture of a scared child.

"Loki," Batman growled. Batman did not care for music.

The man on the swing stropped whistling. Hands in his pockets, he advanced. "I like Beethoven. There is something about his pieces... I cannot explain it. Suppressed emotion bubbling behind the veneer of civilization. He lived a life of depression, pain and constant conflict. Beethoven loathed authority and social rank. He discontinued performances if the audience failed to provide him with the utmost attention. At the soirees he did not act unless he was immediately called up. The usual rules of court etiquette did not apply to Beethoven."

Loki stopped a meter away from Batman. He did not seem nervous around the Dark Knight, and had the air of an unpredictable psychopath.

(The Fear Toxin effected Batman, also. He remembered a face with smeared makeup and black eyes. One who laughed endlessly when Rachel Dawes blew up and Harvey Dent became Two Face.)

Batman grabbed Loki's collar and held him up.

"Where. Is. Scarecrow."

Loki's smile returned at once. He chuckled, though looked pained when Batman tightened his hold. "He... went... away."

This wouldn't work. So Batman opted for a different option. He slammed his fist into Loki's head, knocking him out.

.

.

There was no way around it.

This man unnerved them.

Jonathan Crane did not look particularly creepy. Just shabby, skinny and decorated by bruises and scars. His face was fair, almost pretty, but his facial lines rendered it too harsh to be called feminine. He pretended to be sleeping, but by the monitors in the surveillance rooms told otherwise. Crane was placed a hand tracker like device in a straightjacket with a human muzzle installed into it à la The Silence of The Lambs. The cell walls were made of solid concrete.

Drastic measures, but it'd been built to contain a bloodthirsty deity. And Crane had, after all, been involved in driving people mad. Rumours said that he could do it by talking. And SHIELD took no chances.

 _"Enter, now,"_ the earplug in Black Widow's left ear voiced, connecting her to the control room. There was the intricate clicking of mechanical locks unlocking. It allowed her to enter Crane's cell. _"Don't worry. We're watching."_

It wasn't herself she was worried about.

The heat still existed inside her; water boiling under a layer of ice. No fury like a woman's scorn, said the bard. And he was right. "Crane," she greeted.

His crazy baby blues slid half-open. "Doctor Crane, if you don't mind."

( _"Arrogant son of a bitch."_ Tony. Only he allowed himself to that extensive vocabulary.)

"You—"

"There is a pair of glasses in my left breast pocket. Could you get them for me?" He gave his straightjacket a fruitless little tug.

 _"Don't even think about it,"_ said the control room.

"Why?"

A lazy grin stretched across his mouth. He imagined crows pecking the eyeballs out of her skull. "All the better to see you with, little spider." It is here she—almost—frowned. How did he know her?

She stepped forward. She easily undid the correct knots, and fished the glasses up. He did not struggle when she put them on him, nor when she restrained him again. He looked older, now. Less innocent.

"Thank you." He eyed her as if she was a specimen in his lab. He wanted to get to her, somehow.

"Where's Loki? Doctor."

Crane shrugged. Then he smiled, brightly. He seemed to switch between personalities to probe at people's shields. A bug, clawing its way in, resting inside the eardrum. She did not want Jonathan Crane inside her head. Over the years, Black Widow had encountered things that'd reached into her heart and squeezed until every drop of innocence leaked out. She'd met mass murderers and crime lords, though none made her as skin crawl like this man.

"Do you want my diagnosis on you, Natalia?"

"Answer the question, Scarecrow," said a voice in the corner of the cell.

"...Clint, is it?" Crane said loudly. He concentrated for a moment, remembering. "Ah, yes. Clint Barton. He talks about you. You lack the capacity to mourn, because of your rage against lost love objects, especially the parents you lost at an early stage. Sexually promiscuous, hungry for emotion, ravenous for admiration—but abhor those who provide it. You avoid involvement. Sadistic elements predominate in your superego. To him you complained of inner emptiness, while entertaining fantasies upon libertines. And you have a strong belief in your right to exploit," his looked intensely at Black Widow, "others."

Footsteps, approaching. Barely concealed rage, echoing in the concrete chamber.

"Enough," Black Widow said.

Crane saw the shadow. Hawkeye was standing directly behind him, like an unhinged, towering horror. He was a starved dog—starved on revenge—whose chain was about to break.

"Where is Loki, Crane?" Black Widow repeated.

"I don't know." Behind him, the shadow shifted. "I truly don't know."

"You must have some idea."

"The Batman," Crane said simply.

In the control room, someone gasped. _"He planned this from the start. Clever bastard. It's a trap. Get out of there. He won't bargain with us."_

Black Widow remained stoic. "Your trap won't succeed. We will get Loki, again. We will imprison him, again. And you will rot in Arkham 'till the end of times. _Again_. That is how it always is with you self proclaimed evil masterminds. You get out and we put you back in. Let's go, Clint."

"Fools." Black Widow continued walking. Crane raised both eyebrows. "Imprison him, restrain him, bind him in every way known to man... It doesn't matter. He'll escape. He can destroy a man with a well placed sentence."

"Maybe we should cut his tongue out then," Hawkeye said.

.

.

Loki felt the cold gust of wind before he opened his eyes.

The air was blue black, brown black, black black. Smell of pollution and... animals? Wrists and feet bound. Tape over his eyes. He must've been tied for hours, everything is stiff. He was hanging upside down and blood was rushing to his head. It throbbed like someone's drumming on china. His mouth hurt, too. There was car sounds, far away. No human sounds. The wind continued blowing.

"Do you know who I am?" a voice growled. Batman. There was something animalistic and guttural about him now, as if he'd shredded his humanity. "I'm the worst nightmare your ever had, kind that made you wake up screaming for your mother. You've got a mother, don't you?"

"You think I'm afraid of you," Loki said, trying to hide the tremor in his voice.

"Quite the little job you and Crane did on that mall. Did you feel powerful, destroying those people? There was a little girl there, did you see her? Barely _five_ , wandering around while everything went to hell around her. A woman convinced she was a demon beat her to death with a chair. You know _who_ that woman was?"

He did not continue. Loki knew.

"I want to put an end to this war of yours. To do that, I have to put Crane back into the cell where he belongs. And I want you to tell me where he is. You've got a lot of teeth left. And I haven't even touched your tongue."

"What m—makes you think I'll comply?" Loki stammered coldly.

"I don't think you understand your situation. You're not in the position to say no. Let me show you..."

A moment of pain, as the tape was ripped off. As Loki regained sight, he looked. And _looked_.

Batman grinned.

It'd been tough work, carrying 80 kilos of psychopath to the top of the Gotham Towers—the highest point in Gotham City, 450 meters above the ground, overlooking the buildings and streets bellow.

The sound Loki made it all worth it.

.

.

A little while later, Batman contacted the Avengers while driving through Gotham City. A shock scarred Loki sat in the backseat, duct tape back on. "I'm ready to negotiate," Batman said.


	6. Rampage of Horror

She hadn't eaten breakfast today. Couldn't. The knot in her stomach was too tight. A co-worker, hearing her rumbling belly, had brought coffee and a slice of cheesecake to the her office. These people cared for her; the woman who was about to betray them all.

She looked at the picture on the desk. Her son grinned back at her with dimpled cheeks, and all she could think of was that horrible phone call.

 _"Think of Marcus. Pink, plump little Marcus. He'll be six in August. That is, if you follow our instructions, dear Annabelle."_ There'd been no arguing. They—whoever they were—weren't interested in her objections. _"If you don't, Marcus will have a little accident. Smashed into a trailer, fallen out of a window, mauled by a stray dog... Natural causes, of course. Who'd believe a delirious, mourning mother?"_

She looked at the control board in front of her. She'd been in the position in five years: the overseer at SHIELD's control room. Fiercely loyal. But family came first.

She locked the door behind her.

"Please. Forgive me."

Then Annabelle began on the written instructions.

.

.

There was sweat on her forehead, grime on her fingers and the scent of sewer in her nostrils.

This was not the correct time for a phone call.

"Annie," she tries weakly, "Please. Try to understand."

 _"I don't."_ Teeth grinding together. There was a clearness to her sister's tone, free of alcohol. She's sober. Shockingly so. _"Don't y'think I'd know, huh? They all talk, down here. About your little gang. Insane mythology folks, roaming around in the sewers. Wha'the fuck y'doin' down there? Looking for god piss?"_

They grew up together under the roof of a religious father who frequently beat the fear of the devil into them. Annie turned into a self loathing alcoholic, and Angelica became an antisocial prison chef. How ironic, then, that this time it was Annie lecturing Angelica.

_"I know somethin''s about to happen, sis. Something big. But you don't know what you're getting yourself into! You flash your tits at the first man who shows you some attention, not caring that he's the psycho who destroyed half of New York! That's not you, Angel. You're supposed to be the good one."_

"You don't understand me," she said tiredly, hanging up.

The people around her nodded sympathetically while continuing to dump masses of Fear Toxin into the sewer drains. Angelica sighed, but it was a happy one. She felt more useful than she had in years.

.

.

**59 minutes and 13 seconds until detonation**

.

.

(It'd be an orchestra, Loki had said. An orchestra of slaughter.)

If Crane concentrated, the beeping of monitors and ticking of clocks created a melody. When he'd awakened, he was still bound to the hand tracker. He wasn't alone.

The intruder was working on some machines near Crane. He was dressed in a navy shirt with a lab coat drawn over. Brown, curly hair. Slight stubble. His body screamed uncomfortable; stiff muscles, expression guarded, head lowered. It informed of an attention complex, which often happened to boys who grew too fast and tried to crawl together to avoid attention.

Bruce Banner.

Also known as the Hulk.

He was a reader of genes, not minds. But he saw Crane's Adam's apple bob. "Don't worry. I'm not gonna..." he made some gestures with his hand, avoiding eye contact. Even with a lunatic, he tried to be civil. "I read your essays on psychopharmacology. Brilliant stuff. Read it before, y'know..."

"Before what?" Crane icily asked.

"Before you went crazy." There was a glimpse of understanding between the two scientists. Banner had, too, destroyed his future in his search for knowledge. "Quite a stunt you did on Agent Barton. He was still shaking hours after they'd left your cell. Loki told you all the secrets Barton shared when enslaved, didn't he?"

Crane acted disinterested. "Why are you here?"

"Last check up before the trade."

"The end of the prelude," Crane whispered. He could not contain the childish excitement, and chuckled darkly.

Black Widow and a few other agents were waiting in the doorway.

"How is he?"

"Fine. Physically, I mean. Some bruises on his neck though, but they're healing. I don't think _he_ 'll notice."

"Good." Black Widow nudged to the agents, and the five agents marched over to Crane's hand tracker. One behind to push, and two on both sides to guard. They wore helmets to prevent Crane from probing at weakness and finding a childhood trauma in every pore. And there'd been no time to scrub away whatever toxin that'd infused with Crane's skin, so SHIELD had to take precautions.

"Should I come with you?" Banner asked hesitantly.

"I don't think that'd be wise, Dr. Banner."

"No, of course not."

Crane smiled lazily. In his head, Russian composer Prokofiev's masterpiece Montague's and Capulet's were playing. It was one of Loki's favourites, creating a dark and foreboding atmosphere through dissonant harmonies and dynamic rage.

Perfect, since these men were walking to their deaths. And Black Widow walked in the front.

They led him to a long hallway. They were crooked, and very narrow. No windows. Only dozens of identical doors. The line of ceiling lamps made Crane's face go from lit up to shadowed. His smile grew for each time.

At the end, they came to the final destination.

A room.

Most of the Avengers stood on one side. Thor. Captain America. Ironman. Even SHIELD's leader, Nick Fury.

On the other, Batman and Loki. The former looked terribly out of place in the light. He did not thrive in pristine environments, preferring back allies and shady dives. Surprising how they'd lured him in here. Loki, however, looked bored. There was a large bruise on his forehead though, one that'd definitely scar. The door behind them was an exit to the roof. Crane knew because he'd memorized the architectural layout of the building. He wondered what kind of toy Batman had used to get here.

The tension was so thick one could taste it.

(They were so busy staring each other down that they did not notice the blonde agent that began to tremble.)

"Batman," Black Widow greeted. She could not help sound wary. This man was a murderer, and although she'd negotiated with dangerous men before, there was a possibility that he might snap.

Batman said nothing.

"I take it as we'd all rather just get this over with," Fury said.

"No." His habit of interrupting people did not earn him any good points. Batman didn't care. "I need to know if you're capable handling him." He pointed a gloved finger at Loki.

"Do you know who we are?" Black Widow asked.

"Yes."

"And don't your criminals frequently escape as well?" Ironman continued.

"Irrelevant. _You_ controlled the prison. And he. Walked. Out."

Loki did not like his schemes simplified. But for the looks on the Avengers' faces, he could forgive Batman for the insult.

It had ripple effects, happening in a split second. Thor stepping forward (bad at masking the storm underneath his skin), Loki backing away (sure that this was the time his brother would finally stop faking and kill him), and Batman stepping in front of Loki like a shield. Nick Fury held out a hand. He discontinued the battle.

How could a mortal man pose a threat to the God of Thunder? Loki wanted to pluck out Fury's good eye.

"Listen. We want Loki back into custody. You want Crane back in the nuthouse. Now, we can stand here all day like some pansy ass kids insulting each other's choices and whatnot... Or, we can do the trade and pray to god we'll never see each other again. Sounds right?"

"I still need reassurance."

"Clever coming from a murderer dressed up as a flying rodent," Ironman noted. "Plus you're _paranoid_ , which isn't helping anyone."

"I agree," Crane said. He almost didn't shudder when Batman glared at him.

"I believe I ought to put Loki back where he belongs. Midgardian security is no match for Loki's schemes," Thor said. "I will arrange for a transfer to Asgard."

"I don't trust alien interference," Batman growled. "Your race is the one who caused this in the first place."

Ironman began, "It's not his—"

"I am fully aware of our errors," Thor said gravely. "Thus we shan't create more, and return Loki to Asgard."

"He was captured here on Earth," Captain America said, "and he'll serve his punishment here on Earth."

"A wise decision," Loki drawled.

"Why don't we just finish it?" The agent smirked at Loki. He held a finger to his throat, sliding it over like a slow knife _._ Black Widow pretended not to see.

More accusations and insults flew through the air.

"What time is it?" Crane muttered to the agent holding him.

"A quarter past eleven. Don't worry, we'll get you in jail in no time you no-good sociopathic son of a bitch."

"Thank you," Crane said pleasantly. "Annabelle in Section 5B is finished around this time, isn't she?" Disbelief dawned upon the agent. Crane cleared his throat. "Pardon the superhero brawl interruption, but I'd rather get thrown back into Arkham than sit and listen to you bitch."

"Have you gotten anything out of him?" Batman asked, eyeing Crane.

"Nothing."

"This could be a trap. I don't trust any of them."

"We know that. But we don't trust you, either. Hand him over."

"How do I know you'll keep your part of the deal?" Darkness had consumed Batman's voice. He was speaking lowly, now, and boomingly.

"SHIELD—"

"—has a dark history in which they rarely keep promises," Batman continued.

"How about they'll walk past each other? That way we avoid contact."

Batman gruffly agreed. He did not look happy about it, but he was outnumbered and could not snarl his way out of this one. He cut the rope from Loki's hands with a bat blade. Crane was removed from the hand tracker. The agents almost drooled, looking forward to strap Loki to it. No wonder sadists were attracted to the job.

(The blonde agent had stopped trembling. He was doing muted breathing exercises, counting down. Behind his back, he started fumbling with something.)

Loki calmly walked towards Crane.

"Jonathan."

"Loki."

Revenge was a dish best served cold—and Crane's eyes were made of ice.

They shook hands.

"Pleasure working with you."

"Same."

They held them there a second more than necessary, and when they parted, Crane tore off Loki's bandages. They revealed the scorched skin underneath. Runes.

Glowing.

Thor blinked. They weren't supposed to be doing that! The seiðkonur and seiðmenn of Asgard had gone great lengths to seal Loki's magic. One elder had nearly bled to death!

The light above flickered.

" _Koma, Koma_ ," Loki chanted. He was guiding something to them. Something big.

The light flickered once more. Silver glinted between the agent's fingers. Someone screamed. Liquid splashed the walls. A knife had slit an agent's throat, and soon the other. The Avengers bounced aside, maintaining defensive positions. Then the traitor buried the knife in Captain America's shoulder.

Total chaos resided.

"Fear Toxin," Batman rasped, "they're filling the building with fear toxin."

A door slammed shut.

"After them!"

"This building is like a maze," Black Widow warned.

Thor had already gone. He crashed into walls as he sped through flickering darkness. Batman followed. He'd activated infrared goggles, having an upper hand. But for what Thor lacked in strategy he made up for in rage.

The door behind Thor shut—effectively locking intruders out and Thor inside with… what, exactly?

The hall was long and very narrow. The light was constant, here, intense and white.

A mist laid in the room. Chemicals. It smelled like burning wood. Uneasiness pooled in Thor's stomach. There were whispers and shadows everywhere.

The figure remained unseen for a moment more (allowing Thor to fully inhale the toxin), until it stepped forth.

"Brother." Thor's hands became fists. "Stop this foolishness and step down at once. Or..."

"You'll tell Father?" Loki asked, as soft and slithering as a snake. Was it only Thor's imagination, or was his teeth a little sharper, his hair a little slicker, his pupils a little narrower?

It was hard to tell in this goddamn mist.

Then Thor noticed—

Someone had sewn Loki's mouth shut.

It wasn't a mask, this time. It was startlingly real. Meeting his gaze was like staring into an abyss.

"By Odin, what have they done to you?"

Black stitches contrasted pale flesh. Scars decorated his mouth. It'd been cut open into a smile, and it'd been so for a long time, because the holes had had time to fester. One could see Loki's tongue moving behind the scar tissue like he wanted to speak but couldn't. He started pulling at the stitches, calmly at first. Then the pulling became feverish. He ripped them out, creating a crimson smear over his mouth and hands.

" _Brother_! Stop!"

He pulled the thread out without a sound. One could only stare at the long, bloodied thread, which suddenly transformed into a thousand dead insects that splattered to the floor.

("What does he see?" Loki asked. He was standing entirely still, watching colour drain from Thor's face. He did not hear him, attention fixed on something on the floor. "How much did you give him?"

Crane, who leant on the wall, studying his syringe glove, answered, "He sees whatever he doesn't want to see. And I gave him enough.")

Loki was attempted to speak, mouth moving. Out ran blood, phlegm and more insects; alive this time. Maggots, flies, mosquitoes… His jaw unhinged like a snake. He spewed some more, body convulsing with the effort. "Your fault," he managed to say.

The mewl grew wider and wider.

A black hole.

Thor retched all over the floor.

(He did not see Crane and Loki disappear.)

The door exploded. It gushed smoke.

Batman never left the cave without carrying explosives on his belt.

He saw Thor bending over, trembling. His lips moved. Batman leant closer. "…I did it… By Odin, I did it…"

"You didn't."

Thor looked up. He was battling himself. A lesser man might've gone mad. "I—I apologise."

"Don't."

Stark ran in. He didn't joke when he saw Thor acting like a distressed child. Stark understood. The stress of multiple wars had gotten to him. He did not bother asking Batman where Crane and Loki had gone. They could be anywhere.

"Anything new?" Batman asked.

Stark filled him in, guiding him to a place that would function as a temporary base.

They'd apprehended the turncoat agent. He was tied up in a corner. "She'd kill Jacob," he weeped. Snot ran past his split lip and bruised chin. "She promised she would."

Thor knew immediately. He thought of the red haired lady who'd looked so small in the questioning chair, and almost vomited again. _'You monster,'_ he thought, not quite sure who he referred to.

"There are traitors in the building," Fury stated, walking back and forth with his hands on his back. "You can't trust anyone these days."

"Least of all yourself," Thor whispered hollowly.

.

.

**37 minutes and** **14 seconds** **until detonation.**

.

.

"Dr. Banner," Hawkeye said. "I'm sorry."

"It's alright." Banner gave him a wry smile, ignoring the handcuffs. The other guy could break through them in a millisecond. "I know it's more for your protection than mine."

They were both men deemed too unstable to function in the same room as Loki.

But unlike Hawkeye, Banner had to wait in a 4x4m cell with thick walls of steel and no windows. Hawkeye helped him in, stopping in the doorway. It was better that a friend followed him rather than some overly polite—secretly scared shitless—SHIELD agent.

"It's not a five star hotel but..."

"I've had worse." Banner sat down in the corner of the cell. "Believe me."

Hawkeye grunted. There was a buzzing from his earpiece. "…I need to go," Hawkeye said, "There's trouble." The walls were soundproof, but when Hawkeye opened the door, the alarms echoed through the cell. They disappeared when it shut.

Banner felt very uneasy.

He'd never been claustrophobic, but the walls were closing in. It occurred to him how vulnerable he was inside this cage. He sat in silence for a few more minutes, until he heard a seeping noise from the corner of the room.

A leak.

Upon closer inspections, it was a chemical mix slowly filling the room.

"No," he muttered, "no no no…"

He held his breath as long as he could manage.

It wasn't long enough.

.

.

**23 minutes and 2 seconds until detonation**

.

.

 _"Do not let them escape,"_ Fury said through Hawkeye's earpiece, _"I repeat: do not let them escape."_

"I won't," Hawkeye replied. He held the bow close to his chest.

Panicked personnel ran from place to place, colliding with walls from time to time. One agent was convinced Hawkeye was a two meter tall reptile. They were too crazy to get anything useful out of. Hawkeye had to follow the trail of crazies Loki and Crane left behind.

He moved from room to room, scurrying the various areas for details. He took cover behind IKEA desks and bookshelves. Magazines from the 00's scattered about. He'd reached the older parts of the building. Dust laid everywhere. A few light bulbs swung back and forth. There were footsteps leading to one of the rooms.

"Freeze! Come out with your hands were I can see them!"

Standard sentences, but it astounded Clint when Loki actually did appear from behind a shelf. He looked much calmer than someone supposed to be giving themselves into in to their enemy. He was wearing a mask identical to the one Crane had wore when Hawkeye nearly killed him. "Long time no see, Clint."

Being alone with the God of Mischief made old feelings thought surpassed pop up again. Clint had never quite gotten over his doings as Loki's left-hand-man. Sufferings there were, great in number and pain. Sleepless nights, flowers on graves, hollow condolences to hollow families—all because of him, him, him. He'd killed without concern, and led people into untimely deaths. It was how easy he'd gone rogue that disturbed him the most. _"But it weren't you who did all those things. It was the monster Loki created using your body,"_ Natasha had said, and he clung to those words with his life and sanity. Loki planned to shatter it.

Distant cackling brought Clint out the guilt dream.

There was someone else in there with them.

"Oh, do not mind him," Loki said pleasantly. "He is quite simply _mad_ about these kinds of things. Kind of like you."

"Shut up."

"Did I strike a nerve? I apologise. I look upon our time together fondly, you see. You told me such wonderful things. All your secrets… I feel that I know you so well."

"You shut up or I'll kill you," Hawkeye hissed, face a mask of barely repressed anger.

Rage can blind.

One could only see the form of a Scarecrow moving from under one shelf to another.

"Your love for me was pure like a child's adoration, not sickly or wrong."

An arrow hit right where Loki's head would've been hadn't his reflexes been so good. Another shoot through the air, aimed to kill, which Loki shielded himself by ducking behind a bookshelf.

"I said shut up!"

Clint moved with the deadly swiftness of a hawk about to tear into an animal lower on the food chain. Set out to kill. But Loki was no mere prey. He wasn't about the muscles, he was about the planning. Hawkeye didn't see, because there was so much rage in his veins, so much that he was—

_Swish!_

Blinded.

Dodging another arrow, Loki smirked.

Hawkeye did not catch the small hysteric giggles coming from a thin, dark form behind him. Long limbs moved precisely. The sharp end of a shot glinted. A gun, too.

The latter was slammed into the back of Hawkeye's head. The moment of dizziness left him unprepared. This meant the shadow—the Scarecrow—could proceed to step two. A syringe was inserted in the back of his neck, like a scorpion's sting. Hawkeye tried to swat it away with slowed movements, but Crane was already backing into a mist. Mist? There were no mists here!

"Don't bother fighting; movement quickens the process. I drugged you enough to take out a small horse. Let's see how long your mind will last, shall we?"

Hawkeye could not make out the actual words, merely fragments.

There was a fog and inside there were monsters. Loud, maddening laughter came from them.

Had he not been trained so well, he'd screamed so hard his lungs would burst.

"Welcome to your nightmare, little birdie."

One would believe his mind would've conjured up the corpses of his victims. But that'd be too easy. Contrary to popular belief, Hawkeye was a complex individual—a storm hidden by a stone façade. Firm. Calm. Loyal. The personification of control. So what would the results from Fear Toxin be?

 _'Chaos,'_ Loki thought, teeth ground together in the pure bloodthirsty bliss of it all.

It started as a hiccup. Hawkeye choked on air. His lips twitched into a smirk, which disappeared, and reappeared, repeatedly. He giggled, but his eyes were wide, eyebrows furrowed, hands on his face to repress the bubbling chaos.

"Hel—help..." he rasped, praying the "Heheh _elp_."

He was failing to perform. The audience sat motionless, waiting. No one was cheering, or clapping. _"You need to act!"_ a voice shouted. Trick Shot? But he was— _"Don't falter, boy! You've been trained better than this!"_ Someone threw a bottle at him. It missed, barely. The shattering noise was enough to put him off. Daddy stood in front of him, reeking of booze. _"Worthless piece of shit."_ Slurred _,_ incoherent words. _"Can't do nothing right. I gotta beat the crying out of ya!"_ Mommy stood behind him, face in shadow, smoking a cigarette. _"I should've had that abortion."_

("Parental issues," Crane said, clicking his tongue in mock amusement. "Everyone has them.")

All the voices emerged in his head, becoming a collective exclaim of his uselessness, transforming into Loki's cruel murmur.

Even the children at the orphanage were all Loki, mocking him for his drunkard father and whore mother. Sleepless nights, rats in the walls, and a horrible cold. Carnival carousels and Ferris wheels span about. The Swordsman, beating him. Trust, broken.

He fell to his knees.

His bad memories split open and poured out like a rotten fruit.

Loki had beaten him.

Again.

Loki wished he'd still been in possession of the Tesseract. Hawkeye was stripped to the bone. It'd be easy to erase his identity and mould him into something new. Rip the crumbled paper out and begin anew! That would've been wonderful.

"...result of dose forty-three, slow developing, hallucinates freely, repressed memories, mix with effects from dose sixty-eight..." Jonathan mumbled on, scribbling and doodling biochemical math in his notebook.

"This is perhaps not the best time?" Loki asked. The alarms screamed. "...No matter how pleasing it would have been, we cannot stay to see the look on the Avengers faces."

After many of attempted and successful escapes from Arkham, the alarms didn't bother Jonathan. "A scientific revelation is sometimes the result of a series of errors. We'll reach the exit in six minutes."

"Then we better get going. Our... fans await us."

.

.

**12 minutes and 47 seconds until detonation**

.

.

Two homeless people stood in the middle of the road. It was a poorer district in New York, and it left them nearly undisturbed by cars.

One of them scratched his bald head. "Well," he said, "I know the government is useless but why the hell would you remove a manhole cover?"

"Yes, someone might've fallen into it, man," the other replied enthusiastically, waving his arms about. "Sure it's not the aliens?"

"There's no goddamn aliens here."

"Oh? What about the ones that attacked New York a year ago, yo? Or were you high when they completely destroyed this city? And what about the guy in cape, huh, and the other evil alien who wore a muzzle when they took him away?"

"That's not aliens, they were—" Whatever insult he'd thrown at the Asgardians was stopped as the old man noticed a hand coming out from the manhole.

A person crawled out, brushed dust off his clothes, and walked away from them. He did not look weird—in fact, he was dressed up with suit and tie. He sprayed some cologne on himself as he walked away.

"...Dude."

"What. The hell. Was that."

Another person crawled out. A woman, this time, redheaded and frail. She coughed.

"Uh, excuse me lady, but what were you doing down there?"

She hesitated. Then she opened her mouth. "Loki," she said, and that was all.

She wasn't the last to exit the manhole. Nor the first. All over the city, people swarmed to the arranged meeting place. Most had never met. The kinship was enough to keep them going. They didn't need to exchange names or interests. The knowledge that they, too, had spent countless hours on the web discussing Loki was enough.

They hide in basements, in convenience stores, in low wage jobs, waiting for something to happen. They romanticise things they view as greater then themselves. Not the rich, not the pious—but the mad. Those with determination. Strength. Insanity. Their very existence upset the natural balance. Weaker people swarm around the powerful.

In their eyes, he wasn't a man. He was more than that. A symbol of freedom, of anarchy, of getting back to what was done to you.

A hundred men and women stood in the alley, waiting.

The streets shone.

Someone started clapping. Loki moved out from a dark corner.

His audience froze. Meeting a symbol... That was something that made their breaths hitch and their toes curl.

"I thank you."

He did not need to say anything more.

On cue, Crane bowed. No one recognized him. They thought he was one of them. Another man immediately copied him. And another. Like a wave, every single on of them made the same gesture thankfulness.

Loki smirked. There were men taller than him—but it was something about the way he stood, the way he talked, that granted him the appearance of a giant. Or a god, perhaps. "This is a night you chose to set yourself free. This is the night you... fight _back_."

 _("Keep it as sparse as possible,"_ Crane had said. _"Let their minds do the rest.")_

He did not care what they thought they were fighting against. To him, they had no identity. His followers. His soldiers.

The crowd convulsed with joy. Young and old stood together, wielding weapons.

Angelica stepped forth. _'Some people are with wings,'_ she thought, smiling at Loki. _'Flying up, up, up. I'm just happy to spend my life close to the birds.'_

She handed Loki the trigger.

Loki smiled at her even if he knew she was intoxicated. Poor thing must've used alcohol to dim the doubt in her head. Ironic how her father had done the same after her mother died.

In the end, everything is a circle.

"Wear your masks. Break the chains."

On cue, the followers wore the masks they'd decided to bring. Some resembled animals, or monsters, and other were pure white. Behind a mask are a thousand different people. They could be a saint, a judge, an executioner...

Loki took on his own mask. Emotion welled through him. His finger rested on the trigger.

He inhaled.

.

.

**0 minutes and 3 seconds until detonation**

.

.

A question: How could they have done it?

 _'People,'_ Batman thought, as if that'd explain it all. People were small and frail and selfish. All you needed was manipulation, either with fear or love. Loki had used both.

8 people in total, but Batman didn't know that yet. 8 people had assisted Loki inside the SHIELD building. It'd started small, with a pregnant washwoman, who'd been working there for six years and could name all the big names. He'd worked himself upwards. He'd contacted them and manipulated them. With fear, he'd won.

Then he'd instructed Angelica to gather his followers. He knew there were other people like her. There were always people like her. Crane himself—wonderful when it came to the understanding of the human mind—had said so. With love (or a hollow replication), he'd won.

 _'Gods walk the Earth—and we must not remind them of it,'_ Batman remembered. But what could the kinder Gods do when people didn't care about them? They turned to the hateful, warmongering, dangerous ones, because of greed or dread. The heroes forgot the impact one small life can do.

(If one determined man can ruin a city, what can an army of such men do?)

Humans were made to be ruled.

But Loki hadn't been entirely right, thinking himself as the sovereign ruler.

The truth was that it was their emotions which did.


	7. You Stopped

The building still wasn't cleared. There'd been a gunshot from the surveillance room. Blood had run out from underneath the door. An employee had made the bathroom his kingdom, brutally murdering those who trespassed. Members of the cleaning personnel were convinced they were dogs, and attacked numerous trouser legs. One man had gnawed his arm off in frustration.

Tonight, chaos had come to New York. It opened its drooling void mouth and clasped down with teeth, to tear at the universe itself.

SHIELD was under lockdown, its number one priority destroying the information left in their exposed hideout. Getting their agents out was number two.

Black Widow had located Hawkeye. It hasn't been pretty. Nor had the Hulk been, escaping by running through the walls, tramping down six agents. Bullets didn't bite him. Mere insects to be swatted away.

Masked anarchists were roaming New York. They preyed upon the people they'd believed represented all the wrong in the world, or rather, the wrong done to them. One couldn't tell if they were under the sway of Fear Toxin or had acquired antidotes and acted entirely on their own ludicrous accord. A gang of them had gathered outside the SHIELD headquarters, yelling profanities and attacking the personnel that attempted to escape the toxin infested building. But those who got past were rendered helpless within minutes. They became part of the aggressive lunatics. Fear Toxin lay in low clouds over New York.

Even heroes felt it. Ironman, Captain America, Thor and Batman had snuck through a secret passage that led to the neighbourhood fashion centre. They had no plan. They'd rushed out, the need to _save_ swallowing everything.

Thor was vacant eyed and quiet. Batman kept to himself, sending mistrusting glances at them every now and then. They stared out the windows. There were no words for the chaos outside. But then the rhythm of drums began. The melody that ran from loudspeakers all across town (the heroes spotted several duct taped to stores and streetlights) were not menacing like a chant or war drums. It sounded like... rock music?

"Is that…" Stark squinted, remembering his old new age CD collection. "…Talking Heads?"

They weren't the most the most music orientated group in the world. Captain America had missed out on centuries of music, and was none the wiser. Thor's idea of music was a bard or two. And Batman... well, the man did not seem to enjoy anything else than the sound of begging criminals.

As they entered the streets, they felt the Toxin effects as once.

"You secure the area," Batman finally growled, pointing at Ironman and Captain America.

"No way. We're coming with you."

"No. This is a personal matter." Thor suddenly looked very certain, and very, very dangerous. "I must put an end to the thing I am responsible for."

Ironman winced. Batman was the one who'd found him back then. He probably wasn't the best therapist, encouraging Thor to act rather than to calm himself. The Asgardian had asked how humans could turn against their brethren and eat each other. Like animals. Rats. What did you do in the face of such unspeakable horror? The Avengers had no answer. And Batman? Batman had grinned an ugly grin and said, _"The only reasonable thing is to laugh."_

The place where the knife had been buried still hurt when Captain America moved. He did not object to Thor's statement. Someone needed to take care of the actual streets, before people killed each other.

"They are expecting us," Batman said, voice no longer a growl, but rather, an angry whisper. He looked upwards towards the sky. There was a bat symbol in the sky, crooked. It was accompanied by a hammer. Mjölnir. Both were torn in the middle. It'd all been taken care of. Someone had done this. People willingly mocking gods. The Avengers looked towards the streets, were people ran around, screaming and attacking each other.

A few humans could do all this.

And Batman...

He _laughed_ at them.

Captain America focused on the mob. That was the order he'd been given. He was a soldier. He followed. He did question his orders, or refuse because it was a death mission. "Let's go, Stark," he said stiffly

They parted ways.

A darkness had been born inside Thor. _'I know what I must do.'_ Captain America did not want to be there when it imploded and leaked out.

A girl caught his attention. Frail, small, with bushy hair—and with teeth buried deep into a dead man's neck. Nearby, a smaller boy sat, crying. People were running from one shadow to another. In the swarm of people, they all somehow became insignificant. They were too many. A great blob of chaos. "Ants," Stark said hoarsly, "crawling over each other."

Captain America shook his head. These were people. Alive

"We'll need to save them, anyway. We need to—"

A gush of Fear Toxin escaped a manhole.

Captain America stepped back just in time, but Ironman wasn't quite as fast.

(The scenery abruptly transformed from modern New York to a faraway desert. Tony Stark drew a hand through the sand, watching corns slip through his fingers. Terror then began to fasten itself in his throat.)

"Ironman! Stark!" No reaction whatsoever. Captain America sidestepped from bullets from a civilian convinced he was a three meter tall reptile.

(Instant, all-consuming terror made him choke on his spit. "You've done well," the man said darkly.

"No no no no—" He'd released an atom bomb. Sacrifices had been in vain. Pepper—oh, Pepper—would get wiped off the planet along with a chunk of the United Nations.

Blood showered from his chest like wine. Desperately, he tried to stop the lives ebbing out like sandcorns slipping through his fingers. All are burning burning burning and there is disappointment in soulless eyes of guilt incarnate corpse children under him. "Well well well, Starkie, and here I thought you were the good guy." He stepped on Tony's fingers, breaking them, making the sweetest of crunches. "In ten minutes time, millions will be ashes. And it'll be your fault.")

Captain America's mouth went dry. Ironman was self-mutilating himself, scarring skin and breaking his bones.

He reached out.

Another gush from the manhole rendered him to the same state.

Mad.

Fearing.

Godless.

Captain America's—Steve's, his name is Steve, he mustn't forget his name in the maelstrom of changes and duties—head was filled with whispers of betrayal and hypocrisy, American flags burning all around him. Innocents' hands stuck up from the ground and wanted to return the favour, since he—Steve, Steve, Steve—hadn't prevented the slaughter. "Come play with us, Steve, come play with us..." Bile rose in his throat.

He turned around, swirling. The hands attempted to drag him down into the earth, but he managed to get away. He crashed into a wall. Sunk down.

Closed his eyes.

And saw...

The Scarecrow.

Hay stuck out of the greater part of Scarecrow's head, mixed in with blood and terrible wounds. His sockets were hollow, black holes and his voice was double-edged and gut-wrenchingly terrifying.

"What are you?" Captain America wheezed. He wasn't confronting Jonathan Crane. This was the Scarecrow—the personification of Fear itself. "What are you, underneath the mask?"

The Scarecrow smiled, and removed it.

Captain America screamed.

"God. Oh _god_."

_"Yes. And I have abandoned you."_

.

.

"I gave them one job. One."

Loki and Crane sat in an abandoned book café. The owner had taken one look at them and run. One would not believe the criminal masterminds had time for such thing, but in fact, they were waiting for something. Loki was drinking cola. The bubbles made him grimace.

Crane done a half hearted attempt of ripping the straightjacket off. Loki had claimed it fit him. Bastard. So he'd ended up in it. What a pair they were. Crane, with his broken glasses and madhouse clothes, and Loki, with his torn coat and tangled hair.

"…First, place loud speeches all over the city. Then, make them play Franz Schubert's String Quartet No. 13 in A minor on repeat. Simple instructions, no?"

Crane smiled dreamily, slipping in and out of dreams (nightmarish ones, to the average man, i.e. not Crane), still high from the scientific breakthroughs and/or inhalation of toxin. "Remember, these are not the brightest people. But I must admit; mistaking Schubert for pop rock? I don't know how that is possible." As a boy, he'd often wondered if idiocy was contagious.

The song began again, its 3:35 minutes put in a loop. Loki massaged his temple. The urge to find the man who had committed the error and eviscerate him grew.

Crane wasn't as faced. Half thanks to the euphoria; other half thanks to time spent among shrieking psychos in Arkham.

The coke started moving; circles, moving inwards. Small earthquakes, increasing, nearing.

"…And here we go."

A monster was running towards them. A flash of something.

Big.

Angry.

 _Green_.

(Crane briefly wondered if Doctor Banner had suffered abuse as a child, like so many other heroes. Helplessly watching daddy beat mommy everyday... It could've created the attention complex, too. How clichéd and boring. Well, there was a reason the word passion meant suffering.)

The Hulk charged by, blinded by Fear Toxin.

The knuckles were strong enough to bend 100% solid steel. Teeth, sharp enough to crush skulls. Perhaps, by now, the monster had bones stuck between its teeth.

"Buildings aren't the only thing he'll smash tonight," Crane noted.

"Hulk slaughter," Loki said, smirking. "Let's go."

The two men rose.

"The beginning of an end," Loki mumbled, again and again, like repeating a poem. "The beginning of an end."

Maybe he thought that if he repeated it enough, it'd come true.

"It is here we part ways," Crane said. His voice was oddly empty. "I—" he stopped, biting his tongue, fidgeting. Loki's heightened his brows. It was so unlike him. "It was an interesting partnership. I thank you for it. There's a good chance we won't see each other again. I wish you luck. Goodbye." The whole ordeal made him vaguely uncomfortable. He turned the doorknob.

"Jonathan."

Crane halted, expecting to be mocked.

"You asked me what I fear." Loki was dead serious. "I know yours. It is only fair for you to know mine, is it not?"

Crane turned around, slowly. "What do you fear, Loki?" he asked softly and lifted the mask, revealing half his face.

That was what friendship is for them: standing eye to eye with guns pressed against each other's heads, not knowing who's going to pull the trigger.

"I fear... control." Loki's expression twisted. He'd forgotten how it felt like to open up and reveal weakness, and how it felt to _trust_ , if not only a little bit. He felt like rotten fruit, cracked open. "Being bound; trapped. Someone controlling _me_."

It was not failure he feared, or pain.

Spending an eternity caged was a horrible idea for him, no matter if on a Chitauri prison planet, a luxurious room in Asgard, or buried beneath the Earth's surface... A prison's a prison.

(But even in captivity he'd hide behind a mask, even if he'd slowly go crazy.)

"Don't let me down, Crane."

"I won't."

.

.

They stood at a rooftop in the rain.

How ultimately _proper_.

The air smelt like gasoline and hate. Old chimneys sent up puffs of black smoke. The factory beneath their feet churned and cracked, production continuing, even in the dark. Just like the real world. The searchlight with the hammer and bat had been turned off when Batman and Thor had arrived. The redheaded girl had done it. Angelica was her name.

This was the finale.

The end of all things.

Thor held out a hand. "I need to do this alone," he said. Batman didn't reply. Didn't need to. This didn't concern him. It was something Thor had to deal with alone. "Take care of the Scarecrow. I will handle Loki."

Batman was already gone. He would search, find and catch Crane. Crane knew this. But he'd make sure he wouldn't go down without a fight, and preferably, some mental scars left on Batman.

Thor approached Angelica.

"Why?" he mouthed.

The woman shrugged. She was dressed in a dress, soaking wet from the rain. Her hair was braided. She'd looked forward to this hour as she would her wedding day. "He understood me." Her smile was wide and oddly apologetic.

She died smiling.

There was a perfect, tiny hole between her eyes. The bullet had raced through her, silently. She dropped forward, sprawled out on her stomach. Died. Alone, lost, on a rooftop in the rain.

Loki stepped forward, holding a silencer. He held her eyes until she was gone. He, too, was drenching wet. He looked like an asylum escapee. "Admiration is the furthest thing from understanding," he commented.

Thor watched him, eyes burning. But they were old flames. Glimmers. "Is human life worth nothing to you?"

Loki shrugged. "I don't care for humans."

"Then what about Jonathan Crane?"

Loki shut his eyes. "I enjoy him."

"What is there to enjoy? He is a deluded, broken little man."

"That maybe so, but in your eyes we're both like that, aren't we? You're the one who put me in a rotten basket full of criminals, remember?"

"The only thing rotten is your mind." Thor stepped forward. "Why didn't you run?" he demanded.

(" _Cowardly! Ugly! Weird! Why are you here? You don't belong here!" the children danced around him, and he pressed his hands to his ears, muttering shut up shut up shut up_ )

"Shut. Up." Loki stepped onto the edge of the building, watching the people bellow. He gestured to them. "These are insects you try to protect. Insects that will not hesitate to slaughter each other once you remove the veil. Fear is the base of human nature. Can't you see?"

"Perhaps my eyes are different from yours."

"Because I'm a monster, a Jötunn?"

"Because they are misty, hidden behind veils of despair. Please, please allow me to help you. Allow me to help you regain sight."

And there it was; the damned hope of his redemption, that all will go back to how things were, once upon a time in a castle of gold. But he cannot be saved from himself. Because the castle is rusting and the happily ever after is splattered against the ground like blood. Nothing can ever be the same again.

Loki's eyes narrowed. Then he smiled—a cold, cruel smile. "How's Jane, Thor? Is she still breathing? I was thinking of visiting her myself, you know... Visit and vivisect her. I'd be extra careful with her heart. I'd gift wrap it and mail it to you, brother dear. Or I could make a necklace of her teeth. Would you like that? You could wear her at all times."

"Is there nothing you won't taint?" Thor roared, lighting cracking. He calmed down a bit, muttering, "This is the end, brother... There is no escape. Your wicked tongue will not change anything. Especially not the past."

"I hate you," Loki said simply. "Even now, you still talk down to me. Like I'm worthless. Like I haven't poisoned your precious city, like I aren't responsible for the deaths of millions. I _hate_ you. You, Odin, Frigga... I hate you, because you hate me."

"You are such a good liesmith, Loki—you even believe some of your own illusions."

Loki raised his gun and shot. His expression was calculated, and his hands steady. The bullet hit Thor's shoulder. "Was that an illusion, Thor? I know some things that are real. Fear, for an example. And pain. I have felt pain, Thor, greater than you can imagine. A thousand frostbitten fingers over fire wouldn't create half an idea of it. I have fallen through worlds. And you shouldn't talk about lies like that, especially not after basing my life on one. I think I'll find Jane, yes. Show _her_ some illusions. And pain, and fear. Maybe she'll understand me better. That is, if she's sentient after I'm done with her."

With a yell of frustration, Thor charged at him.

Hands on his throat.

Lifting him.

His legs dangled. Thor held him over the edge of the building. Should Thor let go, he'd plummet 100 stores down and be killed. He'd been in this position before. But this time it was his brother holding him.

"You are a liar as well. You pretended to love me."

Maybe it was Thor's subconscious, maybe it was the Fear Toxin, or perhaps his fingers slipped. None of it mattered. The important thing was:

Thor let go—

(for a moment)

But nevertheless, Loki fell by the hands of his brother, theoretically a pulp of blood on the pavement along with insane, raging, terrified insects.

(only for a moment)

—and captured Loki again, eyes wide and hands shaking.

Thor threw Loki back up onto the roof. He fell to his knees. Loki just laid there, bleeding and breathing, face unreadable.

"You stopped."

It is the first time he's heard Loki's voice untainted by rage and cruelty and hatred. Instead it was hollow, as if it'd crack if you touched it. Thor almost missed the hatred. The hollowness reminded him of the thread in Loki's mouth and the dead bugs and the growing, silent mewl.

Thor wanted to say something. Anything.

But he looked away and said nothing.

.

.

Batman returned with Crane in handcuffs. He hauled the cackling doctor beside Loki.

The sun was coming up.

"It's over," he said to Thor. He did not bother to hide his voice with the growl. Did not bother to hide the raw exhaustion. "It's finally over."

But the damage was done.

Terror had swallowed New York tonight. This time buildings hadn't been ruined—instead, families were torn apart, having witnessed a night they'd never forget. Grandmothers had killed babies. Spouses had smothered their significant other with pillows. Even the Avengers would never forget it.

However, a villain wouldn't leave without the last word.

"Crane."

The giggles came to an abrupt half. The lines smoothened out, leaving Crane expressionless. One could never guess he'd been raving a minute ago. "Yes?"

"Blow up the basket."

Batman and Thor froze. They turned around. Followed Crane and Loki's gaze. Crane was holding a small device in his hand. He clicked it. They were looking in the direction of the prison where Loki had spent all those months.

The ground shook once.

A heartbeat passed.

Just enough for Loki to reply to Thor's breathless "No" with a triumphant "Yes".

Then, in the distance—

The prison exploded.


	8. Epilogue

Arkham Asylum.

Home for the criminally insane.

Location, Gotham. USA. Earth.

"This," Nick Fury said, "is a bad idea." He looked at the faces of the world leaders on the many screens. Most were impassive. A few, repulsed.

"Please do not blame us, but we do not believe you are the best man to give advice on this matter." The grey, gauntly man makes Fury think of morays. Those slippery fish that produced slime when one tried to catch them. Ugly motherfuckers. "Especially not after you previous disasters concerning the handling of the Asgardian criminal. Which of them was he again?" He had a shrimp cocktail beside him, and took one, slurped it in and chewed while he spoke. "The skinny one... mmm... yes?" Pieces of it got stuck in his beard.

"Loki is a time bomb. Putting him in the state's worst nuthouse isn't gonna slow him down. Hell, his former partner in crime resides there. And with all due respect, sir, I've lost a shitload of good men and women because of that sick son of a bitch." His bad mouth did not ease the situation. But Fury recalled the terrified faces of his agents as the chemical toxin had destroyed their nervous systems. One had gone rabid and had to be put down. Like a mad dog.

"Ah, but he'll be their problem, not ours or SHIELD's." Another shrimp was consumed.

"And 'sides," a pug like woman continued, "he's under the pledge of insanity. He'll avoid the federal death penalty, and we'll avoid trouble with Asgard."

Fury realized this'd been dealt with beforehand. This conversation merely existed to keep up the façade. He stiffly thanked them for informing him and clicked the screens off. Agents who passed him heard a quite impressive list of profanities. Their ears rang like when their mothers dropped an f bomb for the first time.

Loki was flown to Gotham as fast as possible. They didn't want a grieving citizen to take the law into their own hands. There'd been three attacks and numerous less hostile on the local police station, demanding Loki's whereabouts (and head). He'd been sent to Gotham with private SHIELD flights with cloaking abilities.

Crane, too, had been shipped to Arkham. Separately, of course. It was less controversial. Some critics claimed he'd been manipulated by Loki—and found straw and blood in their beds the next morning, as warning. The connections Crane had in prison remained. Time stood still in Arkham. He was put under intense care, the exposure to Fear Toxin triggering some old effects from Batman's stunt on him a year ago. The critics used this as another way to backslash Batman. For obvious reasons, Batman wasn't to be found. But the Avengers knew he was watching. Stark had even discovered a nanoscopic probe fastened to his suit. Much to his dismay, it self destructed before he had a chance to take a closer look. God knows how many other the paranoid vigilante had.

All in all, Crane and Loki's arrival had been quiet.

There was media coverage, of course, but a crook or two only held the public for so long. Now, an official cheating taxes, that was news! Foreign paparazzi did not show much interest either. Or rather, couldn't, because being in Gotham for too long made one... _stranger_.

(There was something in the water.)

And Loki?

Loki hated, quietly.

Another cell. Another prison.

Thor visited him sometimes. He didn't try to understand Loki anymore. He did not offer redemption. Instead he just sat there, preferring to talk of insignificant things like food or wedding feasts in Asgard. He didn't respond when Loki mocked him, which, alas, happened less and less. Thor didn't look guilty anymore. Merely hollow. Thor wasn't mere brainless muscle. Loki knew that. The thunder god had grown over the years, going from a carefree boy king to a quiet, stoic warrior. Under iron and boiled leather there was a patchwork of scars.

Loki supposed he should've felt triumphant. But all he felt was emptiness and tire.

He'd sleep it out, for now. Rest. Another opportunity would show itself soon enough. That was how it always was. An endless cycle, the brothers blackening for each time.

Perhaps Loki didn't even realize there was a cycle.

It was over, for now.

Or so he thought.

.

.

Loki laid on the bed when it happened. Sleepless. The previous inmate had scratched hieroglyphs into the ceiling. If he had looked close enough, he'd seen a fingernail. But he didn't.

_Iiiiiik_

The door whined as it opened. It slammed shut, afterwards. The light was dim because of the hour. All Loki could make out was a shape of a man. Medium built. Tangled hair. Orange jumpsuit. Male. An inmate.

Loki sat up. Perhaps this night would be less of a bore than all the others.

"So, uh, _you're_ the guy. Been lookin' for you. A lot. And I mean an l-o-t." The inmate smacked his lips on the t. The voice went from deep to hitch pitched, up and down, up and down. So unreliable. Distorted. Disorder.

Loki smiled. "I'm glad you found me, then."

The inmate did not stir. He lifted a finger. Rays of light illuminated it, showing signs of corrosion. "You. Took. Something. Or someone. Remember Johnny? Scaredy Cat? Calls himself the, uh, master of fear or something equally non clever. He's a chemist, see, and I needed him, and you took him." And then his voice dropped an octave again—and this time, darkness oozed from it. "I don't like being stolen from. Awfully sorry about being a party pooper, but I'll need to repay you, see. Make y'remember."

And then Loki remembered.

"Joker," he whispered. Dread dawned on him.

Too late, too late.

"So, Lo—ki..."

He moved forward like a hungry ghost. In his hands were needle and thread—or rather, a toothpick and a roll of wire.

_"D'ya wanna know how I got these scars?"_


End file.
